The city of 60,000 hasn’t had a single traffic fatality since 2018 and has consistently cut the number of crashes and injuries while - and by - aggressively installing the things that are proven to make cities safer and more efficient for everyone: bike lanes, curb extensions, bus lanes, high-visibility crosswalks, and raised intersections.Īs Hoboken’s streets get safer, New York City, like the rest of America, is moving in the opposite direction. It’s also one of the major tools that Hoboken has used to make its streets less deadly. This is a simple piece of street planning called “daylighting,” and according to Hoboken’s transportation-and-parking director, Ryan Sharp, it’s been among the most popular requests from residents. Stand at a corner, and you can see what is coming toward you, and drivers can see you too, and you don’t have to step out into the road and risk your life to do it. Those spots are blocked off with bike racks or planters or storm drains or extra sidewalk space for pedestrians or vertical plastic pylons that deter all but the boldest delivery-truck drivers. Or you edge out into the street, making yourself visible and vulnerable to whatever impatient soul is behind the wheel, hoping one of you has enough time to make the right decision.įew drivers park next to crosswalks in Hoboken, because they can’t. A pedestrian doesn’t have to play the same perilous game of New York City crosswalk chicken, where you squint through the windows of a massive metal box to catch a glimpse of another speeding metal box whose driver doesn’t see you. Wander down the wide, busy sidewalks of Washington Street, the city’s main strip, past the poke joints and (so-so) bagel shops, or through the unusually narrow side streets that run east and west, and one thing becomes clear.

It’s not quite the prairie, but Hoboken feels downright roomy.

Traffic plan wall township, nj 07727