Day: July 23, 2026

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Transportation advocates on Thursday urged Mayor Zohran Mamdani to release a new plan for Vision Zero, the city’s program to eliminate fatalities and serious injuries from traffic crashes, while unveiling new data showing a rise in traffic deaths during the first half of 2026.

The advocates, with the groups Transportation Alternatives (TA) and Families for Safe Streets, also called on the administration to greatly expand its use of Sammy’s Law, which allows the city to lower speed limits to 20 miles per hour. 

According to the groups’ new analysis of Vision Zero data for the first six months of this year, 99 people have been killed in traffic crashes during that period. That’s equal to one New Yorker dying from the incidents every two days.

The groups found that 37% of pedestrian deaths and 38% of bike rider fatalities took place on the city’s most dangerous streets — designated as “Vision Zero Priority Corridors” — over the first six months of this year.

TA Executive Director Ben Furnas, in a statement, asked where Mamdani’s “Vision Zero plan” is half a year into his first term — referring to the kind of yearly updates former Mayor Bill de Blasio had released on the program over its first seven years. He also said Mamdani must implement Sammy’s Law more widely, beyond the over 800 streets adjacent to schools where he committed to put it into effect earlier this year.

“Too many New Yorkers are being killed and injured to not yet know how the new mayor will shape Vision Zero in his administration,” Furnas said. “Nearly one in three New Yorkers killed in the last six months died on a known-dangerous Vision Zero Priority Corridor, but City Hall has not yet laid out their whole-of-government street safety strategy. In the shorter term, the mayor can make our streets safer, fully implementing Sammy’s Law, not piecemeal on single streets, but by lowering speed limits across wide swaths of New York City.”

DOT data conflicts with transportation advocates’ figures

City Department of Transportation (DOT) spokesperson Vincent Barone countered that there was only one “Vision Zero Action Plan” ever released when de Blasio first launched the effort in 2014. However, he and the advocates appeared to be referring to different kinds of reports.

The agency also offered a statement that did not directly address either of the groups’ demands, but reiterated the Mamdani administration’s commitment to Vision Zero.

“No New Yorker should fear walking to school, biking to work, or driving to visit a loved one,” the DOT said. “Vision Zero means that one death is one too many and under Mayor Mamdani, we are doubling down on innovative approaches to safer street design, targeted traffic enforcement, and expanded public education—-because the city must use every tool at its disposal to prevent catastrophic crashes and save lives.”

The agency released its own report on the first six months of Vision Zero earlier this month, finding the period marked an historic low for pedestrian traffic deaths.

The joint TA/Families for Safe Streets analysis also found an 86% rise in cyclist deaths, counting both bicycle and e-bike riders. That was an increase of seven last year to 13 this year — 10 of whom were killed on streets without protected bike lanes.

Barone, however, said that there was actually a 64% increase, rather than 86%, though it was not clear where that percentage came from.

Furthermore, the report found that 50% more children were killed in crashes during the first six months of this year compared to last — nine vs. six.

The DOT spokesperson also disputed that figure, saying child traffic fatalities remained flat between last year and this year at three.

Fabiola Mendieta-Cuapio, an executive committee co-chair for Families for Safe Streets New York, whose son was killed by a driver at the age of five, said the rise in child deaths that the organizations’ found is “horrifying.”

“It must be a wake-up call for the new administration to put out its plan to finally reach Vision Zero,” Mendieta-Cuapio said. “New York families can’t wait for life-saving street redesigns — the sooner our streets are upgraded, the more children’s lives we can save.”

The MTA completed its work to make Brooklyn’s Borough Hall subway hub accessible for disabled riders by adding new elevators to the station — a project that had been drawn out over several years due to structural updates agency officials said it needed.

Janno Lieber, the MTA’s chair and CEO, stood with other local leaders on July 22 to cut the ribbon on three new elevators the agency recently finished installing in the portion of the station serving the 4 and 5 trains. One of the new elevators connects street level to the mezzanine, while the other two connect to the Manhattan-bound and Brooklyn-bound sides of the platform.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, in a statement, said the new elevators finally make the hub — where riders can also catch the 2, 3, and R trains — accessible to everyone.

“Borough Hall is a vital connection to all that Downtown Brooklyn has to offer, but for too long, this transit hub was not accessible to all; today, that finally changes,” Hochul said.

Lieber said the project, which broke ground in 2023, took 3 1/2 years to complete because the MTA had to reconstruct the station’s entire over 100-year-old ceiling to fix structural problems brought on by age and water damage.

“We had to redo the whole structure of what’s underneath us,” Lieber said, during the ribbon-cutting ceremony outside the station on Joralemon Street.

“That, while we’re still trying to run trains, was a pretty arduous exercise,” he continued. “So I totally get that people felt like there was a lot of construction going at the street level for a long time.”

The transit boss was responding to a reporter who questioned the project’s timeline. He cited commuters whom he spoke with at the station who vented frustration over how long it took the MTA to complete construction.

A failure of waterproofing in the station’s ceiling led to a collapse over the train in 2018, said Jamie Torres-Springer, president of MTA Construction and Development.

“It has been left to deteriorate over 118 years, frankly, so it was in terrible shape,” Torres-Springer said.

Brooklyn Borough President praises MTA for upgrades

However, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, who was also present at the announcement, stood behind the MTA’s timeline for the project. The beep noted that it takes the agency time to do the kinds of long-term structural fixes the system needs correctly.

“I want to have the MTA’s back here,” Reynoso said. “If we want to start solving for these problems in real ways, that speak to climate change, that speak to long-term deliverables for ADA, we’re going to have to do it right. And doing it right took three years.”

The MTA made other structural fixes to the station as well, including upgrades to waterproofing, lighting, drainage, plumbing, fire alarms, and communications systems. The agency is also restoring and reinstalling 1,000 square feet of mosaic tiles that have adorned the station walls since it opened as an Interborough Rapid Transit Company stop in 1908, and is rehabilitating every one of the station’s staircases.

Other accessibility upgrades the MTA made include redesigned platform edges with tactile strips and new boarding areas for wheelchair users, according to the agency.

Lieber said the MTA has completed elevator installations at nine stations so far this year.

The transit authority has made 34 stations accessible since 2021, with 160 stations now accessible, it said. It is actively working on making an additional 34 accessible as well.

The MTA has significantly accelerated its efforts to make more of the subway system accessible since settling a lawsuit in 2023 with several disability advocacy groups. The action sought to force the agency to make far more stations accessible under the ADA.

“It has been 36 years, almost to the day, since the law that demands accessibility and public accommodations was passed,” Lieber said. “This is some long overdue transit justice.”

This story first appeared on Brooklyn Paper’s sister site amNewYork. 

The five proposals address what the mayor’s office believes are outdated, unnecessary and redundant requirements in the City Charter.

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