Mayor Adams vows to remove parking spots from 1,000 NYC intersections every year

New York City plans to reduce parking spots at 1,000 intersections every year to protect pedestrians from drivers, Mayor Eric Adams said on Thursday.

The announcement comes as Adams faces mounting criticism for abandoning his ambitious campaign pledges to improve street safety for pedestrians, cyclists and public transit users. It also comes after a string of recent traffic deaths across the city, including those of a 3-year-old boy who was killed by a driver in Queens in a hit and run Wednesday night and 7-year-old Kamari Hughes, whom an NYPD tow truck driver struck and killed in Brooklyn last month.

“It is imperative that we take the right steps, in the right direction, on how we’re going to ensure that this stops,” Adams said, referring to the Queens crash.

The new measure, known as “daylighting,” aims to improve drivers’ visibility when they make turns. Department of Transportation officials said the city has daylit roughly 400 of the city’s 40,0000 intersections — or about 1% — since Adams took office at the start of 2022.

The city also announced the expansion of a pilot program to install “intelligent speed sensors” in city vehicles, such as school buses and non-emergency NYPD cars. The sensors are supposed to stop drivers from exceeding the speed limit.

Dawn Pinnock, commissioner of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, said 300 of the 25,000 vehicles in the city’s fleet already have the technology, and that the program will grow that number to roughly 1,500.

Officials said traffic fatalities will also be recorded for the first time in CompStat, the NYPD’s weekly published crime data.

Street safety advocates said the moves are positive, but called for lawmakers to lower the city’s 25 mph speed limit and redesign more streets with infrastructure that reduces the likelihood of reckless driving.

Danny Harris, executive director of advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, said children killed by drivers are “all our children” and that the daylighting initiative represents “taking the streets of New York back and giving them to people.”

According to DOT data, more than 225 people were killed in local traffic crashes this year, including 82 pedestrians and 27 cyclists.