This New Jersey City Has Now Gone 9 Years Without A Traffic Death

HOBOKEN, NJ — Hoboken has now gone nine consecutive years without a traffic-related death, prompting other cities to say they'd like to replicate Hoboken's success.

Two years ago this week, when officials in the mile-square city celebrated having gone seven years without a death, then-Mayor Ravi Bhalla noted, "While deliberate action on everything from re-striping high visibility crosswalks to implementing comprehensive road redesigns has aided our success, we aren't stopping.”

The last traffic-related fatality in Hoboken was in 2017.

According to state police statistics, before the plan was implemented, Hoboken had a traffic death in each of 2015, 2016, and 2017. There were none in 2014.

The city has made improvements including adding multi-way stops, high-visibility crosswalks, and 15 MPH school zones.

In 2021, Hoboken's City Council adopted the "VisionZero Action Plan," which aims to eliminate traffic deaths by 2030. This followed Mayor Ravi Bhalla’s 2019 executive order to designate Hoboken as a Vision Zero city.

Besides a reduction in deaths, from 2022 to 2023, there was an 18 percent reduction in injuries due to crashes, and a 62 percent reduction in serious injuries, the city has said.

In 2022, then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg cited Hoboken as a model to emulate nationally.

On Wednesday, Bhalla, now an assemblyman, told Patch, "Going this many years without a traffic fatality is all the proof you need that Vision Zero works. We are fully committed to updating our infrastructure, and it not only saved lives but made our streets much easier to navigate, whether you're walking your kids to school or biking to work.

"Every community has the power to make these same changes, and I'm going to keep pushing at the state level to give other towns the tools and funding they need."

National Recognition

Officials cited "daylighting" — or placing bollards near corners to restrict parking — as a major factor in Hoboken's success.

The bollards make sure drivers and pedestrians can see each other by preventing vehicles from getting too close to the corners and intersections.

Last October, a delegation from Philadephia toured Hoboken to learn its strategies.

"The places that have seen impressive movement on their Vision Zero goals, like Jersey City and Hoboken, New Jersey, have gone a step further than just writing more tickets for this," noted a 2025 editorial in the Philadelphia Citizen, "and actually installed flex posts at the corners so people physically can’t park within a certain distance of the stop sign or light."

Other Cities Are Larger

While bigger cities have tried to learn from Hoboken, critics have noted that Hoboken is 19 blocks long and congested, making it hard to speed during the day. Philadelphia covers 142 square miles.

A newspaper in Santa Cruz, Calif., opined last year, "Unlike Santa Cruz, and nearly all other cities in the nation that have tried [Vision Zero], Hoboken succeeded...It’s an unlikely model for Santa Cruz’s 16-square-mile tangle of highways, arterials and cul-de-sacs. But the low-cost strategies for street safety Hoboken has used could be a template for Santa Cruz to get closer to its safety goals."

Jersey City implemented Vision Zero in 2019, with a goal of eliminating traffic deaths by the current year.

That city has around nine traffic fatalities each year. Numerous "ghost bikes" mark the city, indicating while a cyclist lost his or her life. Last year, a delivery truck rounding a downtown corner struck and killed a 6-year-old boy on a bike, who had just graduated from kindergarten and was riding with his father.

Hoboken Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher pointed out that Hoboken had only one or two traffic deaths a year before "Vision Zero," and many were caused by drunk driving, not just speeding, she said.

“Nine straight years without a traffic fatality is something to be proud of," Fisher said Wednesday, "and every life lost is one too many. As has been recognized, Hoboken’s network of narrow, one-way streets and frequent stop signs has long helped keep speeds down. In the 15 years prior, there were also eight [non-consescutive] years without a traffic fatality; the 10 deaths that did occur largely involved speeding, reckless, or impaired driving. Street safety has always been a top priority of mine, and it will continue to be.”

What The City Did

Here are some of the changes the city undertook to prevent deaths and injuries:

• Multi-way stops added to 14 intersections, including 6 identified as high-crash intersections in the Vision Zero Action Plan

• 418 delineators installed to improve intersection visibility through daylighting at 31 percent of intersections citywide, including 65 intersections adjacent to a park, school, public housing, or senior building
• 61 crosswalks restriped with high visibility, long lasting markings
• 27 curb ramps upgraded to improve ADA accessibility
• 1 raised crosswalk installed to improve pedestrian visibility and slow vehicle speeds along Fifth Street at Stevens Park
• 15 MPH school zone speed limit designation added to 67 blocks in school zones to encourage slower vehicle speeds around K-12 schools
• 6 curb extensions installed to reduce crossing distances, improve intersection visibility, and slow vehicle turning speeds
• 3 curb extensions with green infrastructure installed around ResilienCity Park
• 15 blocks or approximately 0.87 miles of roadway resurfaced by the City of Hoboken and Hudson County

What's Next

The city has undertaken several recent road improvement projects, including in partnership with the county, to improve heavily traveled areas like Willow Avenue and Sinatra Drive.

For more information on the City’s Vision Zero initiative, go to https://www.vzhoboken.com/.

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