r/MicromobilityNYC

…now we apparently offer free boat storage, too!

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

EDIT violations are paid but shall I say the issue of repeat violations

I’m really sick of the lack of enforcement on repeat
Violations that is literally deadly. We are thanking our guardian angels today as this ran my family off the road while deciding to cross the median into our lane on the Belt Pkwy. Me, my husband, our dog and our beautiful 18 month old who is my whole life.

I don’t know what else to do anymore. Yesterday a driver in our neighborhood sped down our block the wrong way and crashed at the end of the block.

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

Stations use the new round dock mini-tower; most stations have no kiosk. Many stations are positioned upstream of intersections, which is excellent for intersection daylighting. CitiBike access to Forest Hills LIRR from Austin St is an important supplement to Woodside LIRR. Station by Jewel Ave and GCP is perfect for rides through FMCP. No complaints !

I’m just gonna leave this video here lol. Dude almost smashed into me taking a right turn so yelled and gave him a little hand tap on this car (obviously no damage lol). Bro proceeds to drive down the bike for an entire avenue (took me a second to get my phone and start recording), inches away from my back wheel. I stop at the next light and yeah, dude gets out of his car and immediately grabs my bike and starts ripping it towards him. He obviously realizes how much of an idiot he is and try’s to grab my phone and tells me to delete the video.

I will repost with no sounds if this gets flagged.