The deadliest highways and corridors in the New York City area

New York City just closed out its safest year on record for traffic deaths, and the crashes that still happen keep landing on the same short list of streets. In April 2026 alone, the city logged 6,625 reported crashes, per crash-report data compiled by thatcarhitme.com, down from 6,773 in January but still averaging more than 200 a day¹. Widen the view to Nassau and Suffolk counties, which sit inside the New York media market alongside the five boroughs, and the pattern holds: a handful of named highways and intersections carry a wildly disproportionate share of the damage.

A record-low year, borough by borough

New York City recorded 205 traffic deaths in 2025, the fewest since city record-keeping began in 1910 and one fewer than the previous low of 206 set in 2018². That's a 19 percent drop from the 253 deaths recorded in 2024, and a 31 percent decline since Vision Zero launched in 2014². Pedestrians still made up more than half the toll: 111 killed, down 9 percent from 122 the year before, while 21 people died on bikes².

The gains were not even across boroughs.

(Figures from NYC DOT².) The first quarter of 2026 kept the trend going: 42 deaths, a 7 percent drop from the same period in 2025, and the third-lowest first quarter since 1910, behind only 2015 and 2018³. Pedestrian deaths in that quarter fell 21 percent, from 29 to 23³.

Two boulevards that earned the same nickname

Queens Boulevard, the seven-mile corridor running from Queens Plaza to Hillside Avenue, was for years one of the most dangerous thoroughfares in the city, in the words of NYC DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez, who inherited its "Boulevard of Death" reputation⁴. A redesign that began in 2015 and finished its sixth and final phase in November 2024 cut traffic deaths on the corridor 68 percent and injuries 35 percent, comparing before-and-after data on redesigned sections, with pedestrian injuries down 45 percent⁴. The boulevard now carries seven miles of protected bike lanes in each direction, the longest continuous stretch in the city, and cyclist volumes have jumped 100 to 450 percent along different sections⁴.

Northern Boulevard picked up the same reputation not long after. Between 2012 and 2016, the stretch between Queens Plaza and 114th Street saw 13 deaths and 1,086 injuries among pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicle occupants, according to NYC DOT's own project record for the corridor⁵. A 2018 announcement from DOT, NYPD, and state Senator Michael Gianaris's office counted 10 deaths along Northern Boulevard since 2017⁶, and DOT later put $79 million into redesigning 2.7 miles of the corridor between Broadway and 114th Street, unveiled in 2021⁵. The intersection of Northern Boulevard and 48th Street is still one of the deadliest in the city: 9 people killed or severely injured there in 5 separate crashes since January 2022, according to a December 2025 analysis by Transportation Alternatives, Families for Safe Streets, and Open Plans⁷.

Where the other boroughs' worst corners are

That same analysis flagged 116 intersections citywide with five or more people killed or severely injured since 2022, an area where nearly 3 million New Yorkers live, and it named the single worst intersection in every borough⁷:

• Manhattan: West 120th Street and Lenox Avenue, 9 killed or severely injured in 3 crashes
• Brooklyn: Flatbush Avenue and Avenue H, 8 killed or severely injured in 8 crashes
• Bronx: Bruckner Boulevard and St. Ann's Avenue, 8 killed or severely injured in 5 crashes
• Staten Island: Hunton Street and Richmond Road, 7 killed or severely injured in a single crash

Flatbush Avenue as a whole is a Vision Zero Priority Corridor, and DOT broke ground in 2026 on a rebuild between Livingston Street and Grand Army Plaza that adds center-running bus lanes and roughly 29,000 square feet of new pedestrian space, meant to serve the 132,000 people who ride the B41 and other routes on the avenue daily⁸. NYC DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn called the current street "highway-like," which lines up with what the crash data shows⁸.

The Bronx posted the sharpest borough-level improvement in 2025, and DOT's own numbers point to specific fixes paying off: pedestrian injuries fell 12 percent and total injuries 14 percent after a 2023 rebuild of East 180th Street in Belmont³. Older Bronx corridors that still draw DOT's attention include University Avenue, Gun Hill Road, Pelham Parkway, Westchester Avenue, and Hunts Point Avenue².

Long Island's turnpikes carry the same burden

Move east into Nassau and Suffolk counties and the danger shifts from named avenues to numbered state routes. A Tri-State Transportation Campaign analysis of New York State DOT crash records found that drivers struck 3,727 pedestrians and cyclists on Nassau County roads between 2014 and 2016⁹. Five roads accounted for most of it: Hempstead Turnpike (Route 24) with 256 crashes, Merrick Road with 237, Sunrise Highway (Route 27) with 146, Old Country Road with 118, and Jericho Turnpike (Route 25) with 95⁹. Measured per mile, Merrick Road was worst at 14.2 crashes per mile⁹. The county's most dangerous intersections in that period were Front Street (Route 102) and Franklin Street in Hempstead, and Middle Neck Road and Cutter Mill Road in Great Neck Plaza, each with 13 crashes over the three years⁹.

Suffolk County's companion study counted 2,558 pedestrians and cyclists struck over the same three years. Jericho Turnpike topped that list too, with 224 crashes, ahead of New York Avenue (Route 110), North Country Road (Route 25A), Montauk Highway (Route 27A), and Sunrise Highway¹⁰. The single worst intersection was New York Avenue and 15th Street in Huntington Station, with 12 crashes¹⁰.

The Northern State Parkway keeps generating fresh cases for New York State Police Troop L, which patrols the parkway across both counties. On November 13, 2025, 54-year-old Carl Salmon of Brooklyn died after losing control while changing lanes near Veterans Memorial Highway in Smithtown, striking another vehicle before his car left the road and hit a tree¹¹. Six weeks later, on December 25, 2025, 21-year-old Osmond Duarte was killed when the flatbed truck he was driving overturned east of Exit 41 in Huntington¹¹.

If you were hurt on one of these roads

None of this data changes what happens after one specific crash. Get checked out, get the police report, and if another driver caused it, talk to someone who handles cases on the road you were actually hit on. You can find one through the legal directory.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. thatcarhitme.com, "New York Crash Report, April 2026," https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/new-york/new-york/april-2026-report

2. NYC Department of Transportation, "Traffic Deaths Reach All-time Low: New York Ends Year With Fewest Fatalities Ever Recorded," https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pr2026/traffic-deaths-reach-all-time-low.shtml

3. NYC Department of Transportation, "Vision Zero: Mamdani Administration Announces Traffic Deaths Are Near Lowest Levels in Recorded History After First Three Months of 2026," https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pr2026/traffic-deaths-are-near-lowest-levels.shtml

4. NYC Department of Transportation, "DOT Announces Completion of Queens Boulevard Redesign," https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pr2024/complete-queens-boulevard-redesign.shtml

5. NYC DOT Projects & Initiatives, Northern Boulevard project record, https://nycdotprojects.info/content/overview

6. New York State Senate, "Senator Gianaris, DOT, NYPD Announce Expanded Enforcement, Planned Design Changes Along Northern Boulevard," https://www.nysenate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2018/michael-gianaris/senator-gianaris-dot-nypd-announce-expanded

7. Transportation Alternatives, "The Most Dangerous Intersections in New York City: Transportation Alternatives Unveils Map with Brand-New Data," https://transalt.org/press-releases/the-most-dangerous-intersections-in-new-york-city-transportation-alternatives-unveils-map-with-brand-new-data

8. NYC Department of Transportation, "Fast Buses: NYC DOT Begins Reconstruction of Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn With New Bus Lanes, Safety Upgrades," https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pr2026/nyc-dot-begins-reconstruction-of-flatbush-avenue.shtml

9. Tri-State Transportation Campaign, "We're Walking (And Biking) Here! An Analysis of Long Island's Most Dangerous Roads for Pedestrians and Bicyclists: Nassau County," https://tstc.org/reports/walkingbikinghere/longisland/nassau.pdf

10. Tri-State Transportation Campaign, "We're Walking (And Biking) Here! An Analysis of Long Island's Most Dangerous Roads for Pedestrians and Bicyclists: Suffolk County," https://tstc.org/reports/walkingbikinghere/longisland/suffolk.pdf

11. New York State Police, fatal crash bulletins for the Northern State Parkway, https://troopers.ny.gov/news/fatal-two-vehicle-collision-northern-state-parkway and https://troopers.ny.gov/news/man-killed-rollover-crash-northern-state-parkway