So Far, 2024 Is Deadliest Year for Traffic Deaths in a Decade

Good morning. It’s Tuesday. We’ll find out why a transit advocacy group says the first quarter of 2024 was the worst for pedestrian fatalities in New York in 10 years. We’ll also get details on the latest official who plans to challenge Mayor Eric Adams in the Democratic primary next year.

A memorial for Sammy Cohen Eckstein, a boy who died after he was hit by a van in Brooklyn in 2013. Credit…Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

A recent report by a transit advocacy group found that the first three months of 2024 were the deadliest for pedestrians since the city began its Vision Zero campaign to reduce or eliminate traffic fatalities.

The group, Traffic Alternatives, also projected that 2024 would be the worst year for what it called “traffic violence” in the 10 years of Vision Zero.

Traffic fatalities in New York have declined in the last 30 years, as my colleague Dodai Stewart pointed out in the Street Wars series last week. Some 265 people were killed in 2023, down from 381 in 2000 and 701 in 1990.

This year, Transportation Alternatives says, pedestrian fatalities are up. As of June 30, 61 pedestrians had been killed in accidents on the streets, compared with 48 in the first six months of last year. The increase comes after a record low number of pedestrian fatalities in the pandemic year of 2020 and the second-fewest number last year, according to the city’s Department of Transportation.