Achieving our Vision Zero goals would not be possible without collaboration. New York City agencies regularly work with each other and engage academic partners to study questions at the forefront of traffic safety. Below is a sample of recent and ongoing Vision Zero-related research projects.

DOHMH Enhanced Surveillance with Public Health Data Sources

Traffic safety is a matter of public health, and better understanding of the causes behind traffic fatality increases in recent years is an important issue for both New York City and the nation. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) will gather data that captures information crash reports cannot: Analysis of vital records will provide context into inequities in traffic fatalities, such as by race and neighborhood poverty level; self-reported survey data will potentially reveal relationships between stress or other mental health factors and driving behavior; and DOHMH’s Syndromic Surveillance system will lay the foundation to better understanding micromobility injury patterns.

NYC DOT Safety Treatment Evaluation

Between 2010 and 2021, NYC DOT completed over 1,000 Street Improvement Projects, including over 100 miles of protected bike lanes, retimed signals for a 25 MPH speed limit on over 800 miles of streets, and 5,000 leading pedestrian intervals. The agency sought to quantify the impact of these engineering changes on street safety. This analysis revealed that DOT’s street safety treatments have dramatically decreased injuries and deaths for all road users.

Pedestrian Safety Study and Older New Yorkers

Vision Zero prioritizes the most vulnerable road users. While deaths across age groups have fallen, the drop for the oldest New Yorkers has not been as large as that for younger adults. With people age 65+ representing nearly half of pedestrian fatalities in New York City, DOT studied crashes involving older New Yorkers and issued recommendations for how to improve their safety. Specifically, DOT created Senior Pedestrian Zones to guide future investment in engineering, enforcement, and education.