{"id":573114,"date":"2026-02-07T15:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T15:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/573114\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T15:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T15:08:10","slug":"hoboken-njs-traffic-fatalities-vanish-due-to-political-will-smart-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/573114\/","title":{"rendered":"Hoboken, NJ’s traffic fatalities vanish due to political will, smart design"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New Jersey city where Frank Sinatra was born and crooned his first notes is now singing a happy tune \u2013 when it comes to traffic safety.<\/p>\n

Hoboken hasn\u2019t had a single car-crash death \u2014 including passengers, drivers, pedestrians or cyclists \u2014 in nine consecutive years, with the last fatality occurring on Jan. 17, 2017.<\/p>\n

The city of 60,000 is proving that with smart design, political leadership and community trust, streets can be built for life \u2013 not loss.<\/p>\n

Hoboken city leaders improved road safety by lowering speed limits and redesigning crosswalks so pedestrians, motorists and cyclists would have better visibility. Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cWe fully committed to updating our infrastructure, and it not only saved lives but made our streets much easier to navigate, whether you\u2019re walking your kids to school or biking to work,\u201d said Democratic state Assemblyman Ravi Bhalla<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHoboken should be seen as a model to replicate, because every community has the power to make those same changes,\u201d said Bhall, who recently ended his time as the city\u2019s two-term mayor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to keep pushing at the state level so other towns have the tools and funding they need to keep their residents safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

A typical American city of Hoboken\u2019s population averages about six to eight traffic fatalities per year, according to the Centers for Disease Control<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bhalla, who\u2019s lived in Hoboken since 2000 and served as mayor from 2018 to Jan.13, conceived the idea of making the compact city safer as a young father,<\/a> when he was forced to push his child\u2019s stroller dangerously close to traffic in order to check if it was safe to cross certain streets.<\/p>\n

That caused him to begin a five year analysis<\/a> of Hoboken\u2019s crash data, which showed that between 2014 and 2018, pedestrians and cyclists made up just 8% of crash victims but accounted for 40% of serious injuries and death.<\/p>\n

Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken on Dec. 12, 1915, and later went on to become a superstar of stage and screen. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Even more striking: nearly 90% of those crashes happened in crosswalks due to poor visibility on the part of drivers and those on foot or bikes.<\/p>\n

In 2019, Bhalla launched Hoboken\u2019s \u201cVision Zero\u201d Task Force<\/a>, and city leaders redesigned roads with vulnerable users in mind.<\/p>\n

Sidewalks were pushed outward into intersections, shortening crossing distances, and forcing drivers to slow down. Pedestrians got a seven-second head start at crosswalk signals. Speed limits dropped to 20 mph, and brighter paint made bike lanes and crosswalks impossible to miss.<\/p>\n

New Jersey law already bans parking near intersections, but enforcement alone wasn\u2019t enough. Instead of tickets, Hoboken installed physical barriers \u2014 simple plastic posts, planters and curb extensions \u2014 that made illegal parking impossible.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe fully committed to updating our infrastructure, and it not only saved lives but made our streets much easier to navigate, whether you\u2019re walking your kids to school or biking to work,\u201d said former Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla. Lev Radin\/Sipa USA via Reuters C<\/p>\n

Some former parking spaces became rain gardens, bike parking, or wider sidewalks.<\/p>\n

During the traffic transformation, residents weighed in through surveys, meetings and tested changes before they were rolled out citywide. Near-miss reports from locals and camera data revealed dangers before someone got seriously hurt, helping leaders react proactively.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s new mayor, Emily B. Jabbour, sworn in earlier this month, has vowed to keep up the high standards of safety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Jersey city where Frank Sinatra was born and crooned his first notes is now singing a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":573115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,54852,81699,5173,5248,401,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,15513,5292,16978,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":["post-573114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-cyclists","tag-hoboken","tag-infrastructure","tag-metro","tag-new-jersey","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-pedestrian-safety","tag-public-safety","tag-study-says","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-news","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116029981089488980","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}