Street parking was already scarce in Hoboken, New Jersey, when the death of an elderly pedestrian prompted city leaders to remove even more spaces in an effort to end traffic fatalities.
For seven years now, the city of nearly 60,000 residents has seen resounding success: No automobile occupant, cyclist or pedestrian has died in a traffic accident since January 2017, elevating Hoboken to a national model for highway safety.
Mayor Ravi Bhalla was a City Council member in 2015 when a van struck Agnes Accera, 89, as she crossed Washington Street in the bustling downtown business district. Bhalla didn’t know Accera but attended her wake and said her death inspired him to push for greater security.
“I felt it wasn’t acceptable,” Bhalla said. “Our elders, to whom we owe the utmost duty of safety, should be able to travel that road as safely as possible. For her to actually be killed was a trigger that we needed to act on.
Bhalla became mayor in 2018, and the city has fully committed to Vision Zero: a set of guidelines adopted by numerous cities, states and nations that seek to eliminate traffic fatalities. Supporters believe that no accident is truly inevitable and even want to eliminate the word “accident” altogether when describing road fatalities.
Sweden came up with the concept more than a quarter century ago, and U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg touted Hoboken in 2022 when he announced his department would follow Vision Zero guidelines. Major U.S. cities, including New York, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Baltimore and Portland, Oregon, have integrated some aspects of the program into their safety plans, including at least some form of natural lighting, the deadline for the removal of park near intersections to improve visibility. .
Hoboken’s success shattered the idea that achieving zero road deaths was more an ambition than achievability.
“This goal is obviously bold,” said Leah Shahum, founder and director of Vision Zero Network, a nonprofit that advocates for road safety. “It is also intended to help us shake off the complacency we have had for too long that road deaths are inevitable, that what we are experiencing today is just an unfortunate and unavailable byproduct of modern society. It is not so.”
While Hoboken’s plan has numerous components, including lower speed limits and staggered traffic lights, daylighting is often cited as a major reason why fatalities have dropped to zero.
Ryan Sharp, the city’s transportation director, said that when streets need repaving, Hoboken takes the extra step of cordoning off street corners to widen curbs and shorten crosswalks. It’s already illegal to park at Hoboken intersections, but drivers often do so anyway if there are no physical barriers.
Some of the new concrete structures feature bike racks, benches and even rain garden planters that help absorb stormwater runoff. If there isn’t enough money for an infrastructure solution right away, the city puts up temporary bollards.
“There’s really no magic solution or something magical and innovative where we’ve cracked a code,” Sharp said. “Our approach has focused more on fundamentals. We’ve created a program where we layer these things year after year.”
But eliminating parking from a place where it is in short supply draws criticism.
Joe Picolli, who opened the Hoboken Barber Shop on Washington Street in 2018, said sidewalk extensions — or bumpouts — have made it difficult for downtown merchants to regain business lost during the pandemic.
“Before the riots, there were a lot more buses, a lot more cars, a lot more parking,” said Picolli, who lives in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, and sometimes has to follow street cleaners to find parking. “It’s good as far as people walking down the street, but it’s bad because you don’t get the flow from other cities.”
Though a bit larger than its Mile Square City nickname would imply, Hoboken ranks fourth nationally in population density, behind three other New Jersey cities and two spots ahead of New York, according to data from the 2022 census.
Although the compact footprint allows everyone to be within range of public transport, cars continue to crowd main streets and pavements.
“We’re not New York City, but we’re not a suburb either,” said Tammy Peng, who has lived in Hoboken for more than 15 years. “We’re kind of a weird middle ground. Many families keep a car because they want to run errands on the weekend, but commute into town Monday through Friday.
Even though daylight makes his commute to soccer practice or the grocery store a little longer, Peng says it’s much easier to spot pedestrians crossing the street.
The overall death toll has remained essentially unchanged since New York joined the Vision Zero movement in 2014 with a plan that included widening some sidewalks. Mayor Eric Adams strengthened the city’s commitment in November by promising to light 1,000 intersections each year.
Some cities have even used this practice to beautify their city centers. Baltimore hired artists to brighten up sidewalk extensions with geometric shapes and bright colors.
States are also adopting natural lighting. More than 40 had enacted some sort of daylighting law by the time the California Legislature passed a new statewide rule in 2023 banning parking within 20 feet (6 meters) of an intersection. Cities can establish shorter distances by demonstrating that their plans are safe. Violators began receiving warnings in January and face fines starting early next year.
Assemblyman Alex Lee, author of the California legislation, said he was concerned that traffic fatalities in his state were even higher than the national average, with about 1,100 pedestrians killed in both 2021 and 2022. deaths were recorded at a similar rate during the first year. six months of 2023.
Although cities in the nation’s most populous state range from giant metropolises to sparsely populated rural communities, Lee thought a statewide standard would eliminate any confusion. The only thing better, he argues, would be a national standard.
“Just like I assume that in every state you can’t park in front of a fire hydrant or near train tracks, it should be the same whether you’re in California or Nebraska,” Lee said.
Stefanie Seskin, director of policy and practices at the National Association of City Transportation Officials, said signage is fine, but not as effective as infrastructure changes.
“It certainly takes an extra level of chutzpah for a driver to park on the curb extension versus parking where a sign says ‘please don’t,’” Seskin said.
Jeff Speck, author of the book “Walkable City,” which advocates for pedestrian-friendly downtowns, praises cities like Hoboken for improving visibility at intersections. However, he said some communities go too far, taking away too many parking spaces without adding physical barriers, creating large “view triangles” that lead to increased speeding.
“What many cities did was overreact to the laudable goal of natural lighting and placing oversized no-parking zones around every driveway and curb cut,” Speck said. “It’s counterproductive.”
In 2012, Seattle was one of the first major cities in the United States to pursue a goal of zero traffic deaths. Mike McGinn, the mayor at the time, said he wanted to recalibrate the public’s expectations about road safety to be more similar to their thoughts about aviation safety, where no fatality is considered acceptable.
Why, he asks, should downtown areas where people work, shop or attend entertainment events settle for lower standards?
“This is literally the simplest piece of real estate that should be entrusted to security,” said McGinn, now executive director of the pedestrian advocacy group America Walks. “It’s low-hanging fruit.”