NYC Council Progressive Caucus to make push for universal daylighting in 2025

The New York City Council Progressive Caucus is prioritizing a measure in the remaining months of the year to eliminate parking within 20 feet of an intersection. The prohibition, also called “universal daylighting” is aimed at increasing street visibility and public safety. The bill would also require the Department of Transportation to install hard infrastructure to 1,000 of those corners each year. If passed, the bill would bring New York City into compliance with the state’s existing daylighting law that bans parking within 20 feet of intersections, which the city has long overridden. 

Council Member Julie Won introduced the bill in 2024 after several people were killed by cars in her district in separate incidents, including 7-year-old Dolma Naadhun and 16-year-old Jael Zhinin, a member of her team said. According to data from Transportation Alternatives, a nonprofit advocacy organization involved in the initiative, 90% of all pedestrian deaths at intersections in 2024 occurred at intersections without physical daylighting barriers such as planters, boulders or bike corrals. 

Calls to curb traffic accidents in the city crystallized in 2014, when Mayor Bill de Blasio launched Vision Zero, a program designed to eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2024. Though traffic-related deaths have decreased, the city missed that goal. In 2024, there were 119 pedestrian deaths, an 18% increase compared to the year prior. 

"Too many pedestrians have been seriously injured or killed because the city has failed to install simple, common-sense street safety measures,” Council Member Sandy Nurse, Progressive Caucus co-chair, said in a statement. “Universal daylighting is a proven, effective way to make our streets safer for pedestrians, bikers and drivers.”

A January report from the city Department of Transportation, however, raised questions about universal daylighting. The agency found no significant safety gains at daylit corners that don’t have physical barriers. Further, it said that removing parked cars without installing a physical barrier could even have negative ramifications because increased visibility might encourage drivers to go faster and allow them to make turns closer to the sidewalk. The DOT did find that so-called “hardened daylighting,” where prohibitive infrastructure such as granite blocks are installed at an intersection, decreased injury rates. But installing such infrastructure at each of the city’s 40,000 intersections would cost more than $3 billion – double the agency’s budget. 

Won criticized the report as “deeply flawed” at a Transportation Committee hearing in April. Elected officials and advocates point to Hoboken, New Jersey which implemented universal daylighting in 2009 and has not had a traffic fatality since 2017. 

Universal daylighting would also decrease the city’s already limited parking availability. DOT Deputy Commissioner for Planning and Management Eric Beaton estimated the program would repurpose roughly 300,000 parking spaces, eliminating 10% of the city’s free spots. 

Despite opposition, the bill has 27 sponsors, a council majority. Universal daylighting is among nine other Progressive Caucus priorities. The caucus’s support has given the initiative “new power and momentum” according to Jackson Chabot, director of advocacy and organizing at Open Plans, one of the leading advocacy groups behind the legislation. The caucus has 18 participating council members and experienced legislative success recently, most notably with the passage of the FARE Act, which eliminated tenant broker fees. The caucus will push Council Speaker Adrienne Adams to call the bill to a vote within the coming months, but it is unclear whether she will do so. 

“The safety of pedestrians and all street users remains a top priority for Speaker Adams and the Council. Introduction 1138 is going through the Council's legislative process, which is deliberative and allows for thorough public engagement and input,” a council spokesperson said.