Upcoming Daylighting Rally Demands ‘Proven Safety Solution’

A rally supporting intersection safety in New York City is coming to City Hall. Planned for Monday, April 21, at 9 a.m., the rally calls for the city to adopt and enforce “daylighting” practices around intersections.
The organizers of the event, micro-mobility advocacy groups OpenPlans and Transportation Alternatives, will be rallying in support of Intro 1138, a bill that will, according to the groups, “make our streets safe” by legislating increased spacing and visibility for pedestrians and drivers to see one another more clearly at intersections.

Intro 1138 calls for “prohibiting standing or parking a vehicle within 20 feet of a crosswalk at an intersection.”

The bill calls for daylighting practices at “a minimum of 1,000 intersections per year.” In order to achieve this, the bill will “require citywide community education and outreach efforts with regard to the change.”

The bill, prime sponsored by District 26 Council Member Julie Won, is supported by 21 Council Members, including Erik Bottcher, Christopher Marte, Shaun Abreu, Carmen De La Rosa, and Gale Brewer in Manhattan. As it stands, the bill has yet to be scheduled for a vote.

“Just using paint and plastic barriers is not enough,” Council Member Won said on March 19, during a committee meeting on transportation and infrastructure. “We’ve had multiple children die. . . . We need to make sure we’re doing the right thing.”

“Daylighting” is the practice of removing the parking spots closest to an intersection to increase visibility for pedestrians and drivers. The practice is supposed to give drivers time to view the entirety of the crosswalk while providing the same clarity for pedestrians crossing the street.

“Intro 1138 would finally bring daylighting to the five boroughs on a large scale, and it couldn’t be more urgent,” said Emily Jacobi, Manhattan organizer at Transportation Alternatives told Straus News in an email. Jacobi referenced the traffic deaths of two 7-year-olds in Queens and Brooklyn in 2023, both of whom were killed at “undaylit” intersections.

“We have a real opportunity to bring a proven safety solution to every street in New York City,” Jacobi went on to say, “and we won’t stop fighting until there’s universal daylighting with physical infrastructure at every intersection.”

The practice has found success outside New York, notably in New Jersey. Following the death of an elderly pedestrian in 2015, Hoboken, NJ, Mayor Ravi Bhalla said that the situation “wasn’t acceptable” and moved to adopt safer traffic practices. Since 2018, Hoboken has not seen a traffic death in over seven years, a feat credited largely to the city adopting daylighting practices.

“Intersections are the most dangerous place on our streets,” OpenPlans says on their website. “Sixty-eight percent of crashes in New York City happen there. Daylighting—especially when it’s hardened by placing objects in the space to physically prevent drivers from driving or parking there—is a proven tool . . . to significantly reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities at intersections.”