Street parking was already scarce in Hoboken, New Jersey, when the death of an elderly pedestrian prompted city leaders to remove even more parking spaces in an effort to put an end to traffic fatalities.
For seven years, the city of nearly 60,000 residents has achieved tremendous success: since January 2017, no car occupant, pedestrian or cyclist has been killed in a traffic accident, making Hoboken a national model for road safety.
Mayor Ravi Bhalla was a city council member in 2015 when a van struck 89-year-old Agnes Accera as she crossed Washington Street in the bustling downtown business district. Bhalla did not know Accera but attended her wake and said her death inspired him to push for better security.
“I didn’t think it was acceptable,” Bhalla said. ‘Our seniors, to whom we owe the greatest safety obligation, should be able to pass that street as safely as possible. The fact that she was actually murdered prompted us to take action.”
Bhalla became mayor in 2018 and the city was fully committed to Vision Zero: a set of guidelines adopted by numerous cities, states and countries to eliminate traffic fatalities. Advocates believe that no accident is truly inevitable and even want to abolish the word “accident” altogether when describing traffic fatalities.
Sweden introduced the concept more than a quarter century ago, and U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg praised 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 aspects of the program into their safety plans, including at least some form of daylighting, the term for removing parking spaces near intersections to improve visibility to improve. .
Hoboken’s success has dispelled the idea that achieving zero traffic fatalities is aspirational rather than achievable.
“That goal is clearly audacious,” said Leah Shahum, founder and director of the Vision Zero Network, a nonprofit organization that advocates for street 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 merely an unfortunate and unavailable by-product of modern society. That is not the case.”
While Hoboken’s plan has numerous components, including lower speed limits and staggered traffic lights, daylight is often seen as one of the biggest reasons why fatalities have dropped to zero.
Ryan Sharp, the city’s transportation director, said when roads need to be repaved, Hoboken takes the extra step of blocking off parking to widen curbs and shorten crosswalks.
Many of the concrete barriers installed are equipped with bike racks, benches and even rain garden planters that help absorb stormwater runoff. If there is not immediately enough money for an infrastructure solution, the city will install temporary poles.
“There’s really no silver bullet or some magical, innovative thing where we’ve cracked a code,” Sharp said. “Our approach focused more on the fundamental issues. We created a program where we layer these things year after year.”
But removing parking in a place where there is a shortage has critics.
Joe Picolli, who opened the Hoboken Barber Shop on Washington Street in 2018, said the curb extensions — or bumpouts — have made it difficult for downtown merchants to regain business lost during the pandemic.
“Before the disasters, there were a lot more buses, a lot more cars, a lot more parking,” says Picolli, who lives in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, and sometimes has to follow street sweepers to find a parking spot. “It’s good when people walk on the streets, but it’s bad because you don’t get electricity from other cities.”
Although slightly larger than its nickname Mile Square City might suggest, Hoboken ranks fourth nationally in population density, behind three other cities in New Jersey and two places ahead of New York, according to 2022 census data.
Although the compact footprint means everyone is within reach of public transport, there are still cars on the main streets and curbs.
“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 are a bit of a weird snack. Many families have a car because they want to go shopping on the weekend, but from Monday to Friday they commute into the city.”
While daylight slightly extends her trips to soccer practice or the grocery store, Peng says it’s much easier to see pedestrians crossing the street.
The total number of fatalities has remained largely unchanged since New York joined the Vision Zero movement in 2014 with a plan that included widening some thresholds. Mayor Eric Adams strengthened the city’s commitment in November by promising to light 1,000 intersections annually.
Some cities have even used this practice to beautify their downtown areas. Baltimore hired artists to spruce up curb extensions with geometric shapes and vibrant colors.
States also embrace daylight. More than 40 had passed some kind of daylight law when the California Legislature passed a new statewide rule in 2023 banning parking within 20 feet of an intersection. Cities can set shorter distances if they prove their plans are safe. Violators were given warnings in January and risk fines from early next year.
Assemblyman Alex Lee, author of the California legislation, said he was concerned that his state’s traffic fatalities were even higher than the national average, with about 1,100 pedestrian fatalities in both 2021 and 2022. The deaths were in a similar pace registered during the first two years. six months of 2023.
Although cities in the nation’s most populous state range from colossal 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 you can’t park in front of a fire hydrant or park close to the railroad tracks in every state, it should be the same whether you’re in California or Nebraska,” Lee said.
Stefanie Seskin, director of policy and practice at the National Association of City Transportation Officials, said signs are fine, but not nearly as effective as infrastructure changes.
“It certainly takes a higher level of courage for a driver to park on a curb than for a driver to park on a sign that 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 are going too far by taking away too much parking without adding physical barriers, creating wide “sight triangles” that lead to higher speeding tickets.
“What a number of cities have done is overreact to the laudable goal of daylighting and placing oversized no-parking zones around every driveway and curb,” Speck said. “That’s counterproductive.”
In 2012, Seattle became one of the first major U.S. cities to aim for zero traffic fatalities. Mike McGinn, the then mayor, said he wanted to recalibrate the public’s expectations of road safety to more align with their thinking on aircraft safety, where no fatalities are considered acceptable.
Why, he asks, should areas of the city where people work, shop or attend entertainment events have to settle for a lower standard?
“This is literally the easiest property to turn over to safety,” said McGinn, now executive director of the pedestrian advocacy group America Walks. “It’s low-hanging fruit.”
