u/ExcuseInformal9194

I recently went down a massive rabbit hole looking at NYC’s official crash data from the last 12 months. In total, there were about 85,000 reported crashes across the city.

A few things jumped out at me immediately, and honestly, none of them are the things people constantly argue about in the comment sections.

First, let's look at what kinds of vehicles are actually getting into these crashes:

• Cars and SUVs: They make up roughly 7 out of every 10 vehicles involved.
• Trucks, buses, and vans: About 9%.
• Bikes, e-bikes, and scooters COMBINED: Only around 5%.

The massive "e-bike vs. everyone" war you see online is basically two tiny slices of the pie yelling at each other, while regular old sedans and SUVs quietly make up 70% of the actual problem.

But here is the part that really stuck with me. Those crashes killed a little over 200 people during the year. When you break down who died, the numbers look like this:

• Pedestrians : 112
• Drivers and passengers: 85
• Cyclists : 26

Think about that: pedestrians make up less than 1 in 5 of the total injuries, but they are the single biggest group when it comes to deaths. Getting hurt or banged up in a crash is usually something that happens to people inside cars. But actually dying in a crash is very often a walking thing. Seeing those numbers definitely changed how I look at crossing the street, even when I have the walk sign.

If you're wondering where all this is happening, the worst roads in the city by raw crash count are the big highways. The Belt Parkway took the number one spot with 993 crashes in a year, followed by the LIE, the BQE, and the Grand Central Parkway. If you want to avoid the single worst intersection in the entire city, stay away from the Grand Central Parkway at Jewel Avenue in Queens.

When you break it down by borough, Brooklyn takes the crown for the most crashes (around 23,600), followed closely by Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx. Staten Island is the quietest by a mile with only about 2,700 crashes though it’s also the smallest borough, so that’s not exactly something to brag about.

NYC Intel

I pulled all ~3.9 million 311 complaints New Yorkers filed over the last year and ranked them. The single most-complained-about thing in the entire city, by a wide margin: illegal parking — 606,107 complaints, about 1,660 a day.

That beats noise. It beats heat-and-hot-water during winter. It beats rats, potholes, dirty streets — everything.

Widen it to all car stuff — illegal parking, blocked driveways, derelict/abandoned vehicles, vehicle noise — and you get ~954,000 complaints. Nearly a quarter (24.5%) of every single 311 call in NYC is about cars. In the most car-dependent neighborhoods it's closer to half: Long Island City ~48%, Bay Ridge 41%, Bensonhurst 34%.

Fair nuance so nobody @'s me: a lot of these are cars-vs-cars — people mad about a double-parked truck, a blocked hydrant, someone in their driveway. But that's exactly the point. That much conflict is the symptom of cramming too many cars into too little curb. It's the friction of over-supplying car storage, logged a million times a year.

And the same streets don't just generate complaints — they generate bodies. Last 12 months: cars injured 8,605 pedestrians and 5,075 cyclists, and killed 132 people walking or biking. 80,000+ reported crashes.

So what? Whenever someone asks "is there really public demand to take space back from cars?" — the answer is sitting in the data, screaming. New Yorkers file more complaints about cars than about anything else in the city. A million times a year. The loudest, most-repeated signal in all of NYC's civic data is people fed up with how much room we've handed to cars. Right-sizing our streets isn't a fringe ask — it's the majority, already yelling for it, one 311 call at a time.

(Data: NYC Open Data — 311 Service Requests + Motor Vehicle Collisions, trailing 12 months.)

NYC Intel

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UPDATE: Planter is back where it belongs (for now). Thanks for all your suggestions! And if you were the king/queen that moved it, hats off to you!

Forgive me for being a Karen, but I’ve submitted 5 reports over the course of 2 weeks for a daylighting planter that’s blocking the bike lane, and nearly each time it’s closed without action in two hours.

I say nearly every time because it was actually rectified after the first report (but moved back into the bike lane after a couple days). Today I filed a report at like 4:30, only to be closed without action at 7:30. Filed again just now.

Now, I’m aware 311 is useless. But I’m petty, and hoping that some day in the future there will be an analysis identifying the most incapable precincts using this data.

So if anyone wants to join in submitting reports for it, here’s the info:
- 71 smith st (smith and state, right outside Debutea)
- **illegal parking (blocking bike lane)
- recurring problem -> yes

** if you know of a better option in the app, pls let me know.

I also reported to NYC DOT. Had to use the customer service form because pretty much every complaint option listed on their website directs you to 311 🙃 would love to hear if anyone else has found a better way to get these issues resolved.

Which of these to go to on a Tuesday night for best pizza?

You enter at the red and are supposed to intuit that you’ve gotta go all the way to the green, not proceed on course.

They literally bought a concrete barrier and two bikes-right signs and patted themselves on the back.

I can’t be the only one who has gone straight down the parking roadway, right?

And the lady gets out of her car ‘Don’t you LIKE my car!’ And goes into a restaurant.