Safer Intersections, Bike Match Milestone, BQE Walk And Talk

New York State law bans parking within 20 feet of an intersection. New York City overrides that law, allowing cars to park up to the crosswalk in many cases. Ceding this space to cars makes intersections more dangerous, as it impairs sight lines for drivers and pedestrians alike.

The solution? A practice known as daylighting, which removes the parking spots closest to an intersection to increase visibility.

We’ve seen cities reduce traffic fatalities by daylighting intersections, so we know it works. Across the Hudson, daylighting helped Jersey City avoid recording a single traffic fatality last year, and it’s contributed to Hoboken going more than four years without one.

If city leaders don't take steps toward making our intersections safer, where 90% of adult pedestrian injuries occur , we’ll have more deadly weekends like last, when four people were killed by traffic violence.

LEARN MORE ABOUT DAYLIGHTING

THREE THINGS TO KNOW

1?? What we can build with universal daylighting. In NYC 25x25 , we call for daylighting at every one of New York City’s 39,000-plus intersections. In addition to making pedestrian crossings safer, this space could also be converted into bike parking, benches, tree plantings, and rain gardens.

2?? Bike Match reaches a new milestone. This week, our Bike Match program made its 100th match since relaunching in January 2022. Going back to the start of the program in March 2020, we’ve now paired 482 New Yorkers with bikes. Have a bike to donate, or looking for a bike yourself? Get involved on our Bike Match page .

3?? In the news. Here's what we're reading this week:

• Mayor Eric Adams announced Ya-Ting Liu as NYC's first-ever Chief Public Realm Officer — and she’s a TA alumna! Read more in Curbed about the next step for our former director of transit advocacy.
• Treehugger recaps a study out of Melbourne, which found that people’s biggest barrier to biking is fear of sharing the road with cars.
• Denver's e-bike rebate program has led to e-bike riding replacing more than 100,000 vehicle miles since April 2022, Bloomberg reports.

TWO THINGS TO DO

1?? Sign our petition to get Vision Zero back on track. With four New Yorkers killed — including a 7-year-old girl in a crosswalk — the weekend after the City Council’s Vision Zero hearing, it’s even more clear that we need stronger implementation of Vision Zero. Sign our petition , call your elected officials, and make it known that we need to act now to make our streets safe.

2?? Register for the Women’s Ride. We’re just over a month away from our second-annual Women’s Ride! Registration is free, so sign up now for this ride through the Bronx and Uptown Manhattan on Saturday, March 25.

ONE ACTION TO TAKE NOW

RSVP to the first of our three BQE walks. On Saturday, we’re hosting a multisensory Walk and Talk along the north section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The tour will begin at 10 a.m. at Macri Triangle in Williamsburg and will feature interactive activities to better understand the impact of the BQE and to inspire its transformation. We’ll also hold walks along the BQE central section on March 4 and the BQE south portion on March 18 ; registration is free for each event.

Thanks for reading!

Ted and the TA team