Safer Streets

New York City intersections equipped with traffic signals that give pedestrians a seven-second head start are associated with a 33% reduction in fatal and non-fatal injuries, according to a study from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health published July 18, 2025.

Researchers analyzed over 6,000 intersections, finding that the technique known as “leading pedestrian intervals” reduced injuries at all intersection types. Fatal pedestrian collisions during daylight hours were cut by 65%.

Leading pedestrian intervals are a low-cost adjustment to signal timing that increases the likelihood of turning drivers yielding to pedestrians and allows slower-moving people an increased margin of safety, according to the Federal Highway Administration.

Although pedestrian deaths declined in the U.S. over the past two years, they remain nearly 20% higher than in 2016, according to a Governors Highway Safety Association report. More than 7,100 pedestrians died last year in traffic collisions.

Traffic signals with leading pedestrian intervals typically give people from three to 11 seconds to enter the intersection before giving a green signal to motorists making turns.

“The idea is to give pedestrians time to reach the center of the intersection where they’re more visible,” lead author Christopher Morrison, assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School said in a statement. “Most pedestrian-vehicle crashes happen near the curb, where drivers are less likely to see people crossing.” 

The Florida cities of Gainesville, St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay, along with Seattle and Washington, D.C, are among municipalities that have installed leading pedestrian interval signaling.

The Columbia Mailman School study looked at crash data from 2013 to 2018, focusing on pedestrian injuries within 100 feet of a signalized intersection.

“A 7-second delay for drivers can mean the difference between life and death for pedestrians,” Morrison said. “Our findings show they work — and could be adopted more widely.”

San Antonio had the best complete streets policy in the Smart Growth America and National Complete Streets Coalition’s 2025 report released June 25, 2025.

The report evaluated 43 policies U.S. cities, states and other government entities adopted in 2023 and 2024.

San Antonio took the top spot after revising a complete streets policy it first established in 2011. Clyde, Ohio, with a population just over 6,300, ranked third.

Complete Streets policies focus on street design that increases safety for pedestrians and cyclists of all ages and abilities, along with motorists and transit users. Governments have adopted more than 1,700 such policies worldwide since the idea was conceived over 20 years ago.

San Antonio’s transportation department updated its complete streets policy based on best practices and lessons from peer cities, according to a Smart Growth America case study. ActivateSA, a local “tactical planning initiative” and think tank, brought together a coalition of disability rights groups, active transportation organizations, public health agencies and environmental organizations to help improve the city’s policy. 

San Antonio also looks to mitigate the potential effects of improved street infrastructure on living costs and calls for a task force to review how well the city meets its goals.

Clyde has a “large population of individuals with developmental and physical disabilities,” according to another case study in the report. Clyde adopted its policy in 2023 with the help of Sandco Industries, a local business that employs people with developmental disabilities. The city’s policy prioritizes bicyclists, youngsters, older adults and those with limited mobility or physical challenges. Upcoming projects include painted crosswalks, curb cuts and new streetlights as well as more bike racks, bus stops and accessible parking.

“The strongest policies lead to changes that make it safer and easier for people to get where they need to go—whether they’re walking, driving, biking, or taking transit," Heidi Simon, director of thriving communities at Smart Growth America, said in an emailed statement. “We applaud communities like Clyde and San Antonio for crafting thoughtful, actionable policies that reflect their local realities and are poised to deliver real, on-the-ground improvements.”

The average complete streets SGA policy score is 52 out of 100, an increase over previous reports, but the number of new policies adopted over the last two years was lower than the prior two years.

“The consequences that stem from policies that lack critical components” — such as the 10 elements of a Complete Streets plan SGA identifies — “could mean that tangible, long-term community changes are not implemented or not implemented in a manner that meets all users’ safety needs,” SGA said in its report.

Complete streets is one of several initiatives to make U.S. roads safer for all users. Despite these programs, pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities have soared over the past decade. A 2023 Smart Cities Dive analysis found that pedestrian deaths grew faster than traffic fatalities as a whole from 2010 to 2021, and that most large cities saw an increase in pedestrian fatalities from 2020 to 2022.

A January 2025 report from former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg recounted actions the Department of Transportation took during the Biden administration to improve roadway safety. These included an effort to leverage artificial intelligence to help plan and create complete streets projects and documents to help assess and quantify the safety effects of such projects.

The Trump administration took down the Federal Highway Administration’s complete streets online resources.

The 10 largest cities and boroughs in the U.S. all provided sustained actions to improve bicycling since last year, according to PeopleForBike’s 2025 city ratings, released June 24, 2025. 

Among cities with populations over 300,000, Baltimore, Cleveland and Fresno, California, showed the greatest score increases from 2024 to 2025 on a zero-to-100 scale. The top 10 largest cities scored above 50, which PeopleForBikes considers a critical tipping point in building momentum toward better bicycling in metropolitan areas, the organization said in a news release. 

“The places that are seeing the most correlation between projects getting built and score increases over time are the ones that are doing it in a planned, methodical way,” Martina Haggerty, vice president of infrastructure at PeopleForBikes, said in an interview. 

Bicyclist fatalities in traffic collisions increased every year from 2017 to 2023, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data. In 2023, the latest year for which complete data is available, 1,166 bike riders lost their lives on streets and roads. 

Haggerty explained that connected bicycle-friendly infrastructure — such as protected bike lanes and dedicated bikeways — improves safety for cyclists and other road users. These routes are best when they also connect to neighborhoods, stores and other transit modes, she said.

“There are some cities that are building a lot of bike infrastructure, but they're not doing it with that lens,” Haggerty said. She pointed out Chicago, which got an 11 score in the new rating, as such a city.

Washington, D.C., represents the opposite end of the spectrum. Its score grew from 36 in 2018 to 52 in 2025. “That's due to filling in key connectivity gaps that puts that bike network together,” said Grace Stonecipher, PeopleForBikes Infrastructure Analytics and Research Manager. In general, the Northeast U.S. “ranks pretty highly,” Stonecipher said. 

The first and only city with a 100 score was Mackinac Island in Michigan. The car-free island, with a population of 583, sits at the top of Lake Huron.

For its eighth year of city ratings, PeopleForBikes evaluated over 2,900 global cities. Paris and Delft, Netherlands, ranked among the highest-ranged worldwide cities. “In general, Europe averages quite a bit higher overall in their city rankings,” Stonecipher said. These cities often have slower speed limits, smaller vehicles and a longstanding culture of bike-riding, she added.

Although U.S. cities have been making progress to increase safety for bike riders, “we're definitely concerned about the future of funding for bike infrastructure at the federal level,” Haggerty said. 

In March, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy rescinded Biden-era policies to include environmental and social considerations in federally funded infrastructure projects. Among these were directives to promote and improve safety for all road users and make streets and other transportation facilities compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

PeopleForBikes is working with other organizations, the bicycle industry and elected officials to continue support for bike-friendly funding, Haggerty said. She pointed to local and state support for such projects. Voters approved $2.2 billion in new funding through ballot measures in 2023, according to the organization. “Improving safety on roads all throughout America,” Haggerty said, “is really not a partisan issue.”

Pedestrian fatalities continued their slow decline in the first half of 2024, down 3.8% from the recent peak in the same period in 2022, according to a preliminary estimate released March 5, 2025 by the Governors Highway Safety Association. A total of 3,304 pedestrians lost their lives in traffic crashes from January to June in 2024, a 2.6% reduction from that period in the prior year.

Estimated pedestrian deaths increased in 23 states and the District of Columbia from the first half of 2023 to the comparable period in 2024, while 22 states saw declines; in five states the number of deaths did not change.

Even with the recent decline, GHSA data shows pedestrian deaths were 48% higher in the first half of 2024 than in that period a decade earlier.

Pedestrian fatalities jumped sharply from 2020 to 2022, according to GHSA data collected by state highway safety offices. The GHSA blames a “steep drop in traffic enforcement nationwide” along with other factors such as roads designed for higher speeds, heavier vehicles like large pickup trucks and SUVs and the lack of pedestrian-friendly infrastructure such as sidewalks, marked crosswalks and roadway lighting.

“While recent incremental progress is welcome, it doesn’t disguise the fact that the numbers moved in the wrong direction over the past decade,” GHSA CEO Jonathan Adkins said in a statement.

California had the largest year-over-year decrease in pedestrian deaths in the first half of 2024, but it remains among the top three states in total pedestrian fatalities, along with Florida and Texas. On a per-population basis, the deadliest states are largely in the Southern half of the U.S., but they also include Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Kentucky, Oregon and the District of Columbia. Mississippi and New Mexico had the highest pedestrian deaths per 100,000 people. Car-centric, Sun Belt cities that often lack adequate public transportation consistently rank among the most dangerous places for pedestrians.

The GHSA recommends a comprehensive approach to improving pedestrian safety. This includes road changes such as speed humps and rumble strips to slow drivers on certain streets, safety education campaigns and equipping new vehicles with automatic emergency braking that can detect pedestrians.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued a new safety standard that would require AEB technology on all cars and light trucks starting in 2029. However, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an automotive industry lobbyist group that represents Ford, General Motors, Honda and Toyota, among other automakers, opposes the regulation and filed suit Jan. 17 to repeal the rule. The National Highway Safety Administration said it would delay the effective date of the rule until March 20 in response to President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order to postpone any rules that had not yet taken effect.

Increased traffic enforcement, roadway infrastructure improvements and continued federal funding are needed to reduce the high level of U.S. traffic fatalities, according to local government officials and safety advocates at a Feb. 12, 2025 subcommittee hearing of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Republican and Democratic House members agreed on the need for continued federal investment. “We don’t have unlimited funds, and it’s crucial we make strategic investments that are proven to save lives,” said Rep. David Rouzer, R-N.C., chair of the subcommittee.

Subcommittee members and witnesses also stressed the importance of protecting vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and bicyclists, who have seen a stark rise in traffic deaths in recent years.

More than 40,000 people a year died in traffic collisions from 2021 to 2023, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The Governors Highway Safety Association estimates that 2023 car crashes killed 7,318 pedestrians and 1,149 bicyclists.

Rouzer said at the hearing, “Underfunded and understaffed police forces mean there are no real consequences for drivers’ illegal actions and have only paved the way for drivers to speed, drive while impaired, and make reckless decisions endangering others on the road.”

GHSA Chair Michael Hanson, appearing at the hearing, agreed: “Alcohol-impaired driving arguably remains our No. 1 highway safety challenge,” he said. Drug-impaired driving is increasing, he added, and states are also seeing impaired driving from a combination of drugs and alcohol. Hanson is director of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety Office of Traffic Safety.

Speeding “remains widely socially acceptable,” Hanson said, and “drivers still have low expectations of receiving a citation or causing a crash.” Cameras designed to detect speeders have proven effective, however, he said. “Given the success of these programs, eligibility for federal grant funds should be expanded to allow states to use funds to install speed safety cameras more broadly,” he said.

Other speakers emphasized the need for road infrastructure improvements to improve safety for motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists. “Roadway investments are crucial,” said Cathy Chase, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. “If you don't have safe roadway environments, then vehicles will not perform as needed and expected.”

Roadway safety infrastructure that can enhance safety for vulnerable road users includes added lighting, curb extensions, accessible sidewalks, separated bike lanes and traffic signals that give additional time to pedestrians, Chase said.

“The infrastructure part of this, and the behavior part of what's happening on our roads, absolutely has to intersect in a meaningful way,” Hanson said. “Infrastructure affects driver behavior, but driver behavior can overcome infrastructure occasionally, and so I think it is a federal priority to ensure that we have the same level of safe design and safe implementation across the country.”

Chase said her organization supports federal programs that fund projects such as Complete Streets to improve roadway safety. A Complete Streets approach involves designing streets that work for all users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders. The Federal Highway Administration recently removed the Complete Streets page from its website, however, other Complete Streets resources can be found on the site via the search function.

Washington, Massachusetts, Oregon, California and Minnesota topped the list of “bicycle-friendly” states in a report issued December 12, 2024 by the League of American Bicyclists.

The League ranked states on the basis of five actions it advocates every state to take, said the organization’s policy director, Ken McLeod. These are centered around bicycle infrastructure, safety, funding, planning and laws.

Although the 2021 infrastructure law made more federal funding available for bicycle safety, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 1,149 bicyclists died in traffic collisions in 2023.

The League report focuses on state-owned roads, which see a higher percentage of pedestrian and bicyclist deaths despite making up a relatively small percentage of all roads, McLeod said. “The data says their roadways are the deadliest roadways, and they have to be responsible for making sure that they're safe for people biking and walking,” he said.

The report judges state departments of transportation on their efforts to improve safety for bicyclists, McLeod explained. The biggest difference between the best-ranked states and those at the lower rungs is whether they have specific planning around bike safety and update their plans every 10 years, he said. As of this year, 36 states have adopted bicycle plans in the past 10 years.

Other key actions that the League emphasizes include having laws that require motorists to leave a 3-foot buffer when passing bicyclists and setting or allowing communities to set 20-mph speed limits in residential areas and business districts, McLeod said. “Slower speeds really can save lives,” he said.

The League urges state DOTs to spend at least 2% of their federal transportation funds on biking and pedestrian infrastructure, according to McLeod. While that number was met in aggregate in 2023, he said the majority of states didn’t achieve that benchmark. However, the report commends New Hampshire for being among the states with the largest ranking improvement by exceeding the 2% spending threshold. New Hampshire’s improved ranking is also credited to its new bike plan, the League said.

The report calls out Kansas for improving its ranking more than any other state and three states — Maine, Oklahoma and South Carolina — for adopting or planning to adopt their first statewide bike plans.

But McLeod noted that the high number of bicyclist deaths demands a stronger response from state transportation departments. “It's an ongoing crisis. It deserves attention,” he said.

Crosswalks that span a larger distance from one side of the street to the other increase the likelihood of a pedestrian being struck by a vehicle, according to a study researchers at the Center for Urban Science and Progress at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering released September, 2024.

The study looked at some 49,000 street crossings in Paris, San Francisco and Irvine, California — cities with vastly different histories and pedestrian environments.

“Crossing distance is measurable at the scale of entire cities, is fundamental to pedestrian safety and is addressable with low-tech traffic calming,” said Marcel Moran, lead author of the study.

The number of pedestrians killed in U.S. traffic collisions rose 77% from 2010 to 2021 while the number killed in Europe declined 20% from 2010 to 2018. The NYU study examined the relationship between a city’s crosswalk length and its rate of pedestrian collisions. The study found the average crossing distance in Paris to be 26 feet versus 43 feet in San Francisco and 58 feet in Irvine. 

“A fundamental aspect of pedestrian safety is the length of a crosswalk for a pedestrian,” Moran explained. “The longer that crossing is, the more you're mathematically exposed to any type of road traffic.”

Pedestrian crossings that were longer than average in each city saw more collisions: an increase of 15% in Paris, 23% in San Francisco and 43% in Irvine. One in five crosswalks in Irvine is more than 70 feet long.

Cities can take simple countermeasures to enhance pedestrian safety, Moran said. Pedestrian crossing signals, lower speed limits, signage, speed tables and pedestrian refuge islands in the median of very wide roads are “incremental steps,” he said. “None of these things are reducing car access, but they're all trying to make pedestrians not feel so out-of-scale with the environment.”

On a broader level, planners can use street-level data such as that the study compiled to target mitigation strategies for wide road crossings that are most likely to create a higher danger for pedestrians. Moran pointed out that long crossings can be even more daunting for those with mobility challenges. “We want a walkable environment that matches Americans’ needs across their lifespan and abilities,” he said.

Building on this initial research, Moran is looking to conduct a larger study encompassing the 100 largest cities in the U.S. “If we can see the relationship between crashes and [crossing] distance at the level of 100 cities, not just three cities, I think that would create even more incentive for cities to take this metric seriously.”

Philadelphia reported 50% fewer traffic fatalities and a 90% reduction in excessive speeding along Roosevelt Boulevard in the first seven months following installation of automated speed cameras, according to Streetlight Data, a transportation data analytics company.

The 12-lane highway through densely populated neighborhoods in Northeast Philadelphia has a posted speed limit of 45 mph. A Streetlight Data analysis found that before speed cameras, the mean speed along one segment where there have been many fatal crashes was 51 mph at 8 a.m. on an average Tuesday.

After a year with automated speed enforcement, the mean speed of vehicles on that stretch of road dropped to 46 mph, just above the speed limit. The total number of crashes along Roosevelt Boulevard dropped 36% in the first year with speed cameras while declining just 6% citywide, according to a 2023 report from the Pennsylvania State Transportation Advisory Committee. Crashes were less severe in 2021, which the PSTAC said is most likely due to reduced speeds.

Traffic deaths in the U.S. soared 25% from 2013 to 2023, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Eighteen percent of drivers were speeding when they crashed, according to a 2024 NHTSA research note looking at data from 2022. Philadelphia’s Roosevelt Boulevard is considered by some to be one of the most dangerous roads in the United States.

In June 2020, Philadelphia installed speed cameras along eight segments of Roosevelt Boulevard known for high crash rates. Many of the residents along this road are from disadvantaged communities, according to Streetlight Data, and the roadway largely lacks pedestrian safety infrastructure such as pedestrian islands or signalized crossings. In 2023 the state secured a $14.5 million federal grant that will go toward curb extensions, realigned crosswalks and lane configurations, improved traffic signals and new or renovated transit stops along Roosevelt Boulevard.

According to Streetlight Data, overall speeds in the measured segment continued to decline into this year, with a larger percentage of drivers traveling at or below the 45 mph speed limit. But the company’s analysis identified nine additional segments of the boulevard as high-speed areas where safety interventions are warranted. 

On unlit streets, motorists are more than three times as likely to yield to nighttime pedestrians at illuminated crosswalks than at dark ones, according to a new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Researchers from IIHS and Western Michigan University studied the effect of crosswalk illuminators, which are LED floodlights that shine horizontally across the street, at four intersections in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

At these intersections, none of which had traffic signals, researchers found that drivers slowed where flashing beacons or any type of lighting were present, but a combination of flashing beacons and crosswalk lighting triggered by the pedestrian resulted in the highest yielding behavior.

More than 7,300 pedestrians died in traffic collisions in the U.S. last year, according to preliminary data from the Governors Highway Safety Association. Pedestrian fatalities were 14.1% higher than in 2019, and the death toll soared 77% from 2010 to 2022. Nighttime is the most dangerous time for pedestrians: in 2022, 78% of deaths occurred at night, according to the GHSA.

“Solutions aren’t always complicated,” said IIHS President David Harkey in a statement. “We can stop pedestrians from being killed if we make sure drivers see them — but first city planners and road designers have to see the light.”

The researchers went to two dimly lit T-shaped intersections and a dimly lit four-way intersection with a 30 mph speed limit. At those locations, drivers were more likely to slow more than 10 mph when crosswalk lighting was present. At another dimly lit site equipped with flashing beacons and triggered crosswalk lighting, drivers were more than 13 times as likely to yield to pedestrians, compared with no added lights. At the remaining site, where the speed limit was 25 mph and the mid-block location was brightly lit, there was no statistically significant difference in driver response with the addition of crosswalk lighting.

Prior research found that flashing beacons get the attention of drivers but don’t help them see pedestrians, IIHS said in a press release. “The combination of [flashing beacons] with crosswalk lighting presumably accomplishes both goals — though that’s something that needs to be confirmed with further research at additional sites,” IIHS states.

Most people aren’t familiar with the term “stroad,” a mashup of “street” and “road,” but almost everyone has had experience with one – and it likely wasn’t good.

“They're usually the roads that people talk about with dismay,” said Katherine Kortum, senior program officer at the Transportation Research Board.

Stroads generally have speed limits of at least 35 or even 45 miles per hour, said Adie Tomer, senior fellow with Brookings Metro. They also tend to lack safety features common to highways, such as limited exits and entrances and defined median strips. Instead, stroads often feature frequent intersections and entrances into and out of businesses and retailers.

Many stroads have some level of pedestrian activity, Tomer said, though pedestrians tend to avoid them because crossing requires navigating multiple lanes of traffic. This leads to more congestion, Kortum said, because residents often use vehicles when they don’t feel safe walking, even if their destination is within walking distance.

According to a study of more than 60 “hot spots” for fatal pedestrian crashes published in the Journal of Transport and Land Use, nearly all (97%) were multilane roadways, 70% required pedestrians to cross five or more lanes and more than three-quarters had speed limits of at least 30 miles per hour. 

Improving safety and traffic flow

Lowering speed limits on stroads near commercial activity and making other safety improvements like green-arrow lights, narrowing right-turn lanes and improving visibility at intersections can help make stroads safer, experts say.

In Seattle, the risk of crashes with injuries dropped more than 17% when the speed limit was lowered from 25 to 20 miles per hour on nonarterial streets and from 30 to 25 on arterial streets, a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found. Kortum said limiting drivers to making left turns on green arrows means they’ll be less likely to zoom in front of oncoming traffic to turn during a green light. Improving visibility at intersections and corners can be as simple as trimming shrubbery or relocating signs that block site lines, she said. And narrowing right-turn lanes, Davis said, reduces the distance pedestrians have to cross and slows down drivers, giving them more time to look for pedestrians and bikers before turning.

Cinzia Cirillo, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Maryland, said city leaders could also consider “complete street” design focusing on safe access for pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders of all ages and abilities. Depending on the community, a complete street may include sidewalks, bike lanes, bus lanes, median islands and comfortable, accessible public transportation stops.

Who owns the road? 

Cities’ efforts to make stroads safer and more productive are complicated by several challenges. Many are state-owned, and state transportation departments tend to focus on vehicle throughput, Kortum said. Dangerous By Design 2024, a study by Smart Growth America, found that 66% of all traffic deaths within the 101 largest U.S. metro areas occur on state-owned roads.

One state has taken action. In 2024, Delaware passed the Everyone Gets Home Act authorizing the Department of Transportation to designate low-speed streets and roads to address fatal roadway departure crashes related to vehicle speed. It also permits counties to request these designations to meet their own traffic safety goals

Shifting federal priorities could also present challenges. If the Trump administration shifts focus away from or cancels discretionary grant funding, that could slow momentum for local efforts to transform stroads, Kortum said. These projects often rely on flexible federal funding streams like the Safe Streets and Roads for All program, which supports context-sensitive redesigns that prioritize safety and multimodal access, she said. Without this support, cities may struggle to fund comprehensive redesigns and could be left with piecemeal improvements, she said.