The most dangerous intersections in Baltimore, according to the city's own data

A couple of numbers explain why Baltimore City spent the last two years building a new map of its most dangerous streets. In 2024, the city logged more than 15,000 traffic crashes that produced 508 serious injuries and 64 deaths. Overall crash volume is down about 16% since 2019, but serious injuries and deaths climbed over that same stretch.¹ More people are dying even as fewer crashes happen, and that gap is what pushed the Baltimore City Department of Transportation (BCDOT) to name the specific streets and intersections where the danger is concentrated.

A short list of streets carries most of the risk

Using five years of statewide crash data, from 2019 through 2023, BCDOT found that nearly 60% of the city's worst crashes happen on just 7% of its roadways.¹ The department sorted those roads into a three-tier High Injury Network. Tier 1, the worst tier, includes Pennsylvania Avenue in West Baltimore, North Avenue, and North Eutaw Street between Baltimore Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard.¹ Belair Road, Orleans Street, and Pratt Street also made the network, in the lower tiers.¹ Brian O'Malley, president and CEO of the Central Maryland Transportation Alliance, has called the pattern a "crisis."¹

That citywide network builds on an earlier, more granular study. Baltimore's 2022-2026 Strategic Highway Safety Plan ranked the ten specific intersections with the most frequent and severe crashes from 2017 through 2019:²

• W Franklin Street and N Payson Street
• Orleans Street and Ensor Street
• W North Avenue and N Fulton Avenue
• S Monroe Street and Washington Boulevard
• W North Avenue and N Howard Street
• Clifton Avenue and Denison Street
• Lombard Street and Light Street
• Reisterstown Road and Gwynns Falls Parkway
• W Pratt Street and S Paca Street
• Erdman Avenue and Belair Road

A companion ranking limited to pedestrian and bicycle crashes over the same three years put Belair Road and Erdman Avenue first, followed by W North Avenue and N Fulton Avenue, E Baltimore Street and St Paul Street, E Lombard Street and Light Street, and, at eighth, W North Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue.² A few traits repeat across both lists. The average high-crash intersection has 7 travel lanes, compared with 5 at lower-crash intersections. Every major approach road carries at least 10,000 vehicles a day, and 90% carry more than 20,000.² One intersection, S Monroe Street at Washington Boulevard, runs a 150-second signal cycle, longer than any other signalized intersection in the study.²

Pedestrians carry the biggest share of the risk

From 2016 through 2020, the city's own data shows pedestrians were involved in only about 4% of all crashes, but made up 30% to 47% of fatal ones each year.² That imbalance hasn't eased. Baltimore recorded 43 traffic deaths in 2025, and 11 of them were pedestrians.³ On June 20, 2026, the city logged two fatal crashes within a single hour: a child struck by a driver, and a 19-year-old scooter rider struck by a driver. Shayna Rose, the city transportation planner who leads the Vision Zero Action Plan, said incidents like that make her "terrified" to raise her daughter in Baltimore.³ The city's Vision Zero goal, zero deaths and serious injuries, carries a target date of 2041.³

Nationally, intersections are exactly where this kind of risk clusters. NHTSA counted 11,843 intersection-related traffic deaths in 2023, and 73% happened in urban settings like Baltimore rather than rural ones.⁴

Baltimore County's danger sits on state highways

Cross the city line and the pattern changes. Baltimore County owns and maintains 87% of its roads, mostly neighborhood streets and local connectors. But most of the county's fatalities and serious injuries happen on the 12% of roadways owned by the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration (MDOT SHA), meaning state highways with higher speed limits and longer gaps between intersections.⁵ From 2021 through 2023, the county averaged 65 fatal crashes and 19,292 total crashes a year. In 2023 alone, it recorded 55 fatal crashes and 18,315 total crashes.⁵

The clearest illustration of that risk came on March 22, 2023, when a driver changing lanes on the inner loop of I-695 at Security Boulevard lost control and crossed into a work zone, killing six construction workers.⁶ Lieutenant Governor Aruna Miller later cited that crash directly while pushing the Maryland Road Worker Protection Act (House Bill 513, signed into law in April 2024), which raised automated speed-enforcement fines in work zones from $40 to as much as $290 and, starting in 2025, introduced a tiered fine schedule of $60 to $500 based on how far over the limit a driver was going.⁶⁷ Maryland averaged 1,287 work zone crashes in 2023, more than three a day.⁶

MDOT SHA is now funding safety projects on several Baltimore County corridors flagged through its Pedestrian Safety Action Plan and Vulnerable Road User assessments: Reisterstown Road (MD 140) between Rosewood Lane and Westminster Pike, Liberty Road (MD 26) between Washington Avenue and Owings Mills Boulevard, Martin Boulevard (MD 700) between Eastern Boulevard and Pulaski Highway, Eastern Avenue (MD 150) between Martin Boulevard and the Southeast Freeway, and Loch Raven Boulevard (MD 542) between the Baltimore City line and Cromwell Bridge Road.⁸ In neighboring Anne Arundel County, Ritchie Highway (MD 2) between Baltimore Annapolis Boulevard and Mountain Road made the same priority list.⁸

How the state tracks and responds to fatal crashes

Under Maryland's Transportation Article § 8-204.2, MDOT SHA must review the infrastructure at the scene of every pedestrian or bicyclist fatality on a state road within six months of being notified. In 2025, SHA completed 29 of these reviews and recommended 26 infrastructure improvements now under study.⁸ The broader Vision Zero reporting requirement comes from Transportation Article § 8-1007, created by House Bill 885 (Chapter 377 of the 2019 Acts) and amended by Senate Bill 345 (Chapter 603 of the 2024 Acts).⁸ Statewide, Maryland recorded 582 traffic deaths in 2024, a 6% drop from the year before. The Maryland Highway Safety Office has set a goal of zero traffic deaths by 2030, a full decade ahead of Baltimore City's own 2041 target.⁵⁸

If you've been hurt in a crash at one of these intersections or corridors, a local attorney who already knows how BCDOT and MDOT SHA classify these locations can be useful in building your case. You can find one through thatcarhitme.com's legal directory.

This article is for general information only. It isn't legal advice.

Sources

1. The Baltimore Banner, "Baltimore City crashes: Where the worst traffic accidents occur": https://www.thebanner.com/community/transportation/baltimore-crash-accidents-car-pedestrians-roads-W6C72ZN4ZJDWXNFXSD56CP7XXU/

2. Baltimore City Strategic Highway Safety Plan 2022-2026, Baltimore City Department of Transportation / Maryland Department of Transportation: https://zerodeathsmd.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Baltimore-City-SHSP.pdf

3. The Baltimore Banner, "Baltimore's traffic safety plan has a big goal: No road deaths": https://www.thebanner.com/community/transportation/baltimore-traffic-crash-safety-hoboken-transportation-SOZBLFI7SJHWVBAAUD63XQE2OQ/

4. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, "2023 Data: Rural/Urban Comparison of Traffic Fatalities," Traffic Safety Facts: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813728

5. Baltimore County Strategic Highway Safety Plan, Final Plan, Baltimore County Department of Public Works and Transportation / Maryland Department of Transportation (2024): https://zerodeathsmd.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Baltimore-County-2024-0718_Final-SHSP.pdf

6. Capital News Service (University of Maryland), "After deadly work zone crashes, a push for change": https://cnsmaryland.org/2024/04/17/after-deadly-work-zone-crashes-a-push-for-change/

7. Office of Governor Wes Moore, "Moore-Miller Administration Introduces Legislation to Protect Maryland Road Workers," January 25, 2024: https://governor.maryland.gov/leadership/lt-governor/press-releases/moore-miller-administration-introduces-legislation-protect-maryland-road-workers

8. Zero Deaths Maryland and Vision Zero, TR § 8-1007(a)(1),(2),(3) report, Maryland Department of Transportation / Maryland Highway Safety Office, December 2025: https://zerodeathsmd.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/VisionZeroReport_2025.pdf