Philadelphia logged 84 fatal crashes in the first ten months of 2024, down from 100 over the same span in 2023, according to the city's Vision Zero Annual Report 2024, released December 9, 2024.1 That's real progress. But it sits next to a harder number buried in the state's own data: intersection crashes are the one category moving the wrong way. Statewide, fatalities tied to intersections rose from 301 in 2023 to 321 in 2024, and deaths at stop sign controlled intersections climbed from 98 to 111, even as Pennsylvania's overall traffic death toll fell to 1,127, its second lowest total since record keeping began in 1928.2 Philadelphia, with its grid of wide arterials cutting through dense rowhouse neighborhoods, supplies more than its share of those intersection crashes.
Broad Street has passed Roosevelt Boulevard as the city's deadliest corridor
For years, Roosevelt Boulevard held the grim distinction of Philadelphia's most dangerous road. That changed in 2024. Broad Street is now averaging more than one traffic death a month, enough to overtake Roosevelt Boulevard in total fatalities for the year, according to the city's Vision Zero data reported by CBS News Philadelphia.3 Officials point to speeding and the growing share of large SUVs on the road, which are especially lethal to anyone on foot.3 Mayor Cherelle Parker has authorized speed cameras for the full length of Broad Street, from the county line to the stadium complex, with installation expected in fall 2025.3
The city's own federal grant application for the Vision Zero Capital Plan puts hard numbers behind these corridors. Across the eleven segments the city selected for federal Safe Streets funding, all sitting on the High Injury Network, reported crashes totaled roughly 1,189 between 2017 and 2021 alone, involving more than 3,000 people; 19 of those crashes were fatal, including six pedestrians and three bicyclists killed.4
North Broad Street supplied two of those corridors on its own. Between Diamond Street and Allegheny Avenue, the city logged 370 crashes involving 925 people from 2017 through 2021, 31 of them serious or fatal, including 12 deaths, a rate of 62 crashes per mile every year. The shorter stretch from Cecil B. Moore Avenue to Diamond Street saw 174 crashes and 471 people involved over the same five years, at 83 crashes per mile per year, one of the highest rates the city measured anywhere on its network. Cecil B. Moore Avenue itself, running past Temple University from 10th to 17th Streets, added 123 more crashes, 314 people involved, and 12 serious or fatal crashes including one death.4
Roosevelt Boulevard's old reputation, and its real comeback
Roosevelt Boulevard earned its reputation honestly. A 2001 State Farm analysis of insurance claims, reported by Insurance Journal, ranked the Boulevard's intersection with Red Lion Road as the second most dangerous in the entire country, with 331 crashes over two years, and its intersection with Grant Avenue as third, with 261.5 The road carried 10 to 13 percent of all of Philadelphia's traffic deaths in a typical year before the pandemic.6 In 2013, a driver killed Samara Banks and three of her young sons, ages 7 months, 23 months, and 4 years, as they crossed the Boulevard; the city later renamed that crossing Banks Way in her honor.6 A 17 year old, John "JJ" Gbaa Jr., was killed there in a hit and run in November 2018.6
The turnaround since is one of the city's clearer wins. Automated speed cameras went live on the Boulevard in June 2020 and issued more than 224,000 warning tickets in their first 30 days; by February 2021, actual ticket volume had fallen below 17,000 a month as drivers adjusted.6 Speeding on the corridor is down about 95 percent, crashes involving pedestrians have dropped by roughly half, and the city estimates the cameras save about one life a month.3 It's a rare case of a genuinely dangerous Philadelphia intersection getting measurably safer.
Eight years and $7.3 million to fix one corner of North Philadelphia
Where Germantown Avenue crosses Broad Street and Erie Avenue at a diagonal in North Philadelphia, the resulting intersection is unusually wide and, for years, unusually deadly. Between 2014 and 2018 it recorded two pedestrian fatalities and five serious injuries, on a corner that carries roughly 55,000 vehicles, 20,000 transit riders, and 12,000 pedestrians on an average day.7 The city and neighborhood partners started studying fixes in 2017.8 Construction finally began the week of July 13, 2023, on a $7.3 million project funded jointly by the city and state, and wrapped by the end of 2024. The rebuild extended the median on Broad Street, widened sidewalks, shortened crosswalks, pulled out unused trolley tracks, and added new bus lanes, bike lanes, and two expanded public plazas.7
Older crash data still shows up in today's patterns
Some of Philadelphia's worst intersections have stayed on the list for over a decade. A 2014 mapping analysis by Azavea and PlanPhilly, built on 2008 to 2013 city crash data, named the corner of 5th Street and Olney Avenue the most collision prone for pedestrians in the city, with 25 crashes, and called Cottman Avenue and Bustleton Avenue, near the Roosevelt Mall, the single deadliest intersection of 2013, with 15 pedestrian collisions, three of them fatal.9 Broad Street and Olney Avenue, Broad and Snyder Avenue, Broad and Girard Avenue, and 40th and Market Street near the Market-Frankford El also ranked among the worst in that analysis.9 More than a decade later, several of those same corridors, Broad Street chief among them, remain on the city's current High Injury Network, the roughly 12 percent of Philadelphia's streets that account for an estimated 80 percent of traffic deaths and serious injuries citywide.10
What the city is doing about it now
Mayor Parker signed an executive order in March 2024 recommitting the city to Vision Zero's goal of eliminating traffic deaths by 2030, and the administration released an updated Vision Zero Action Plan 2025-2030 on November 25, 2025.11 The plan notes that vulnerable road users, meaning pedestrians, cyclists, and people using mobility devices, made up less than 10 percent of all crashes in 2024 but nearly two-thirds of all fatalities, and that Black Philadelphians are hospitalized after crashes at close to double the rate of white residents.11 Newer automated speed enforcement zones now cover Broad Street and Old York Road (PA Route 611), Baltimore Avenue, West Hunting Park Avenue, and Frankford Avenue (Route 13), Erie and Torresdale Avenues (Route 2001), Allegheny Avenue (Route 2016), and Richmond Street and Delaware Avenue (Route 1004).11 The city has also installed pedestrian median islands on Race, Chestnut, and Broad Streets and opened its fifth neighborhood "slow zone" near 10th Street and Memorial Avenue.11 Citywide, the Vision Zero Capital Plan traces roughly 36 percent of all Philadelphia traffic deaths back to aggressive driving, meaning speeding or failure to yield.4 The Philadelphia Police Department's Accident Investigation Unit maintains a public dataset of every fatal crash logged since January 1, 2019, refreshed nightly, for anyone who wants to check a specific corner.12
If you're hurt at one of these intersections
None of this data changes what to do in the moment: call 911, get checked out even if you feel fine, and request the police report once it's filed. Given how often these intersections generate multi vehicle and pedestrian crashes with disputed fault, a written record matters. If you're dealing with injuries, missed work, or an insurer that isn't cooperating, the legal directory can help you find an attorney who handles crash cases in the Philadelphia area.
This is general information, not legal advice.
Sources
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City of Philadelphia, "City of Philadelphia Releases Vision Zero Annual Report 2024," Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems, December 9, 2024. https://www.phila.gov/2024-12-09-city-of-philadelphia-releases-vision-zero-annual-report-2024/
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PennDOT, "2024 Traffic Fatalities in Pennsylvania Second Lowest on Record," May 1, 2025. https://www.pa.gov/agencies/penndot/news-and-media/newsroom/statewide/2025/2024-traffic-fatalities-in-pennsylvania-second-lowest-on-record
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CBS News Philadelphia, "Philadelphia data shows Broad Street now sees more traffic deaths than Roosevelt Boulevard," December 2024. https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/philadelphia-vision-zero-report-2024-broad-street-crashes/
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City of Philadelphia, "Philadelphia Vision Zero Capital Plan Implementation Project," Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) Implementation Grant Application, September 15, 2022. https://4273298.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/4273298/Philadelphia_SS4A_Implementation_Grant_Application.pdf
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Insurance Journal, "Most Dangerous Intersections: Philadelphia Has 2 of the Top 3," June 28, 2001. https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/east/2001/06/28/12403.htm
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WHYY, "Rising U.S. traffic deaths put focus on Roosevelt Blvd." https://whyy.org/articles/philly-roosevelt-blvd-rising-traffic-deaths/
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WHYY, "Broad Street intersection set to receive multimillion renovation." https://whyy.org/articles/intersection-renovation-north-philly-broad-germantown-erie-pedestrian-streets/
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City of Philadelphia, "Broad, Germantown, and Erie (BGE)," Programs and Initiatives. https://www.phila.gov/programs/broad-germantown-and-erie-bge/
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WHYY, "Azavea and PlanPhilly map Philly's most dangerous intersections for pedestrians." https://whyy.org/articles/azavea-and-planphilly-map-philly-s-most-dangerous-intersections-for-pedestrians/
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OpenDataPhilly, "Vision Zero High Injury Network." https://opendataphilly.org/datasets/vision-zero-high-injury-network/
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City of Philadelphia, "City of Philadelphia Releases Vision Zero Action Plan 2030," Department of Public Health, November 25, 2025. https://www.phila.gov/2025-11-25-city-of-philadelphia-releases-vision-zero-action-plan-2030/
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OpenDataPhilly, "Fatal Crashes," Philadelphia Police Department Accident Investigation Unit. https://opendataphilly.org/datasets/fatal-crashes/