After 10 years of Vision Zero, NYC has a new ‘Boulevard of Death’

Two busy streets have come to symbolize the successes and failures of New York City’s Vision Zero program, which launched 10 years ago this month with the goal of eliminating fatal car crashes across the five boroughs.

Thanks to Vision Zero, Queens Boulevard no longer lives up to its nickname, “the Boulevard of Death.” In 1997, 18 pedestrians were killed by drivers on the street. But since Mayor Bill de Blasio launched the initiative in 2014, a total of 10 traffic deaths have occurred along the 7.5-mile roadway — as well as three calendar years without any car crash deaths at all.

But another major thoroughfare hasn’t received nearly as much attention from the city. In fact, Jon Orcutt, the director of advocacy at Bike New York, says Atlantic Avenue is so dangerous that it’s more deserving of Queens Boulevard’s grim nickname.

“Atlantic Avenue is one of the last boulevards of death,” said Orcutt, who worked for the city’s Department of Transportation under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Over the last decade, 40 traffic deaths have occurred on Atlantic Avenue — four times as many as Queens Boulevard. Yet projects to improve safety along the roadway over the last decade have been limited to improvements to the median in East New York. Atlantic Avenue is 10 miles long and stretches from Jamaica, Queens, to the edge of New York Harbor in Brooklyn.

The differing realities demonstrate how the Vision Zero program saves lives — as well as how far the city must go to accomplish its stated goal of eliminating traffic deaths altogether.

A tale of two streets

Between 2009 and 2014, when Vision Zero launched, 42 people died or suffered serious injuries on Queens Boulevard. De Blasio singled it out as the city’s most dangerous roadway. Some sections of Queens Boulevard had 12 lanes of traffic, forcing pedestrians to sprint across the street.

“We all got used to the name, ‘Boulevard of Death,’” de Blasio said in a recent interview with WNYC’s “Morning…