New Orleans' most dangerous intersections, according to the data

New Orleans drivers can usually name their own worst intersection without thinking twice. The data mostly backs up the instinct. Orleans Parish has run at roughly three times the statewide pedestrian crash rate, and pedestrians make up a far larger share of the city's traffic deaths than they do statewide or nationally.¹

The most detailed public breakdown of exactly where these crashes cluster comes from the City of New Orleans Pedestrian Safety Action Plan, a joint project of the city, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD), the Regional Planning Commission, and engineering firm GCR Inc. Using five years of DOTD crash data from 2008 through 2012, the plan's authors scored every intersection in the city by crash frequency and severity, weighting fatalities and severe injuries far more heavily than fender-benders.¹ The findings were stark: 22.7% of all Louisiana pedestrian crashes during that period happened in Orleans Parish, even though the parish holds only about 8% of the state's population. The average annual pedestrian fatality rate here ran 2.6 per 100,000 residents, against 2.3 statewide and 1.4 nationally. And 25.7% of all traffic deaths in Orleans Parish were pedestrians, nearly double the state rate of 13.3% and the national rate of 12.9%.¹

The intersections that topped the list

The plan's highest-scoring location, ranked by a weighted mix of crash count and severity over that five-year window, was South Claiborne Avenue (US 90) at Gravier Street, where the road runs in the shadow of the elevated expressway. Only four crashes were recorded there, but three resulted in a death or severe injury, including two fatal crashes in 2011 alone.¹ Close behind:

• Poydras Street and Camp Street: 11 crashes, 2 killed or severely injured
• Iberville Street and North Peters Street: 11 crashes, 2 killed or severely injured
• Canal Street at Carondelet Street/Bourbon Street: 10 crashes, 2 killed or severely injured
• South Peters Street and Poydras Street: 8 crashes, 2 killed or severely injured
• Esplanade Avenue and North Claiborne Avenue (LA 39/US 90): 7 crashes, 2 killed or severely injured
• Read Boulevard at the Interstate 10 westbound onramp: 4 crashes, 2 killed or severely injured
• South Carrollton Avenue and Ulloa Street: 4 crashes, 2 killed or severely injured

Each of these carried a signal at the time of the study except Iberville and Peters.¹

Zoom out from single intersections and the pattern along Peters Street gets sharper. Three connected intersections, at Canal, Iberville, and Poydras, produced 18 pedestrian crashes and 21 injured pedestrians over the study period. Eleven of the drivers involved were making or preparing to make a left turn.¹ On the Westbank, the cluster where Holiday Drive meets Behrman Place (LA 428) recorded two fatal crashes in a single year, 2011: one driver was impaired by alcohol, another by drugs, both striking pedestrians on a stretch with limited lighting near Memorial Park Drive.¹ Further down the ranking, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard at South Claiborne Avenue killed one pedestrian in 2008, and Louisiana Avenue at South Saratoga Street killed another in 2009. Both crashes happened at night, and in both cases the crash report left the driver's identity or vehicle unrecorded.¹

The plan's authors were candid about the limits of their own data. Louisiana's crash reports left 11% of pedestrian records with null or unknown values, and officers' discretion in filling out forms varied from crash to crash, so a handful of incidents could shift the rankings.¹ What held up across locations were the causes: left turns at unsignalized approaches, poor nighttime lighting, and drivers or pedestrians impaired by alcohol.¹

What the current numbers look like

That study is now more than a decade old, but the corridors it flagged are largely the same ones the city is targeting today. In 2025, New Orleans recorded 53 fatal crashes and 4,126 injury crashes, both down 14% from 2024, along with 24 fatal pedestrian crashes, down 20%.² NOPD's Traffic Division has since reported traffic deaths running roughly 40% below the prior year's pace through mid-2026.³

After a fatal hit-and-run on Chef Menteur Highway in New Orleans East, Mayor Helena Moreno's administration and the City Council rolled out a $171 million road safety plan covering 66 miles of city streets, including Broad Street, Chef Menteur Highway, North Claiborne Avenue, Hayne Boulevard, and Elysian Fields Avenue.² City engineers noted that fewer than 20% of New Orleans intersections currently have pedestrian signals; the plan calls for curb extensions, speed cushions, better lighting, and lower posted speeds along those corridors.² The Department of Public Works has also opened a dedicated pedestrian-safety project on Broad Street and Read Boulevard, the same Read Boulevard corridor flagged for its I-10 onramp crashes back in 2014.⁴ So far the wider plan is unfunded: the city has a $750,000 federal planning grant and is asking the state to cover 19 of the 66 miles that fall under DOTD's jurisdiction, all while facing a projected $222 million budget shortfall.²

The city's Comprehensive Safety Action Plan, developed under the federal Safe Streets for All program, put a number on how concentrated the risk really is. New Orleans has about 1,800 centerline miles of city streets. Just 129.4 of those miles, 7% of the network, are classified as the High Injury Network, and that 7% accounts for 68% of all fatal and severe-injury crashes citywide. Most of that network doubles as truck routes and RTA bus lines, and roughly 70% of it has no dedicated bicycle facility.⁵ Between 2019 and 2023, the city tallied 297 traffic deaths and more than 47,000 injuries.⁶

NOPD's own reporting breaks the toll down by mode. In a recent year-to-date accounting, the department logged 21 drivers, 6 passengers, 21 pedestrians, and 3 bicyclists killed, alongside 6,617 reported injuries across Orleans Parish.⁷ Earlier the same year, through mid-September, pedestrians accounted for 17 of the city's 36 traffic deaths, close to half.⁸

DOTD remains the legal repository for all of this data under state law, and the Center for Analytics and Research in Transportation Safety at LSU processes crash reports from local police agencies nightly through the state's eCRASH system.⁹ That pipeline is what feeds both the city's planning documents and, eventually, the next version of this list.

Getting help after a crash

If you're hurt at one of these intersections, or anywhere else in the New Orleans area, Louisiana law gives you two years from the date of injury to file most crash-related lawsuits under Civil Code article 3493.3, a change from the old one-year deadline that took effect for injuries occurring on or after July 1, 2024.¹⁰ The roadway's own crash history, including whether a location shows up on the city's High Injury Network or in past DOTD data, can matter to how a claim gets argued. An attorney who handles crash cases in the New Orleans area can help you sort out what evidence to gather; you can find one through the legal directory.

This article is for general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. City of New Orleans, Regional Planning Commission, Louisiana DOTD, and GCR Inc., "City of New Orleans Pedestrian Safety Action Plan, Part I: Engineering Strategies," Final Report, July 2014: https://www.norpc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/City-of-New-Orleans-Pededtrian-Safety-Action-Plan-Part-1.pdf

2. NOLA.com (The Times-Picayune), "After fatal hit-and-run, New Orleans unveils $171M road safety plan. The question is how to fund it.": https://www.nola.com/news/new-orleans-roads/article_a19c3e0f-8c2c-4c0b-a9c5-ac514b22e223.html

3. Hoodline, "NOPD Credits Traffic Unit After 40% Drop In Fatalities," June 2026: https://hoodline.com/2026/06/nopd-traffic-cops-take-victory-lap-as-deadly-crashes-plunge-40-percent/

4. City of New Orleans Department of Public Works, "Broad Street | Read Boulevard Pedestrian Safety Project": https://nola.gov/next/public-works/projects/broad-street-read-boulevard-pedestrian-safety-project/

5. City of New Orleans, "New Orleans Comprehensive Safety Action Plan": https://nola.gov/nola/media/Mayor-s-Office/Infrastructure/Safe%20Streets/Narrative-New-Orleans-Comprehensive-Safety-Action-Plan.pdf

6. City of New Orleans Mayor's Office, "City of New Orleans Launches Safe Streets for All Initiative to Eliminate Traffic Deaths," May 2, 2025: https://nola.gov/next/mayors-office/news/articles/may-2025/2025-05-02-city-of-new-orleans-launches-safe-streets-for-all-initiative-to-eliminate-traffic-deaths/

7. NOPD News, "NOPD Traffic Division Reports Enforcement Results & Year-to-Date Fatality Trends," December 2025: https://nopdnews.com/post/december-2025/nopd-traffic-division-reports-enforcement-results/

8. NOPD News, "NOPD Traffic Division Reports Enforcement Results," September 2025: https://nopdnews.com/post/september-2025/nopd-traffic-division-reports-enforcement-results/

9. Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, "Safety Data & Analysis": https://dotd.la.gov/about/office-of-project-delivery/planning/highway-safety/safety-data-analysis/

10. Louisiana State Legislature, Civil Code Article 3493.3, "Delictual actions; two-year prescription" (enacted by 2024 Act No. 423 / HB 315, effective July 1, 2024): https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/Law.aspx?d=1386445