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Hoboken, New Jersey hasn’t had a traffic fatality in 7 years

Published

4 months ago

March 2, 2024

Street parking was already scarce in Hoboken, New Jersey, when the death of an elderly pedestrian spurred city leaders to remove even more spaces in a bid to end traffic fatalities.

For seven years now, the city of nearly 60,000 people has reported resounding success: Not a single automobile occupant, bicyclist or pedestrian has died in a traffic crash since January 2017, elevating Hoboken as a national model for roadway safety.

Mayor Ravi Bhalla was a City Council member in 2015 when a van struck 89-year-old Agnes Accera as she crossed Washington Street in the bustling downtown business district. Bhalla didn’t know Accera but attended her wake and said her death inspired him to push for better safety.

“I felt it wasn’t acceptable,” Bhalla said. “Our seniors, who we owe the greatest duty of safety to, should be able to pass that street as safely as possible. For her to actually be killed was a trigger that we needed to take action.”

Bhalla became mayor in 2018 and the city fully committed to Vision Zero: a set of guidelines adopted by numerous cities, states and nations seeking to eliminate traffic deaths. Proponents believe no accident is truly unavoidable and even want to do away with the word “accident” altogether when describing roadway fatalities.

Sweden originated the concept more than a quarter-century ago, and U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg touted Hoboken in 2022 when announcing his department would follow Vision Zero guidelines. Major U.S. cities including New York, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Baltimore and Portland, Oregon, have integrated aspects of the program into their safety plans, including at least some form of daylighting, the term for the removal of parking spaces near intersections to improve visibility.

Hoboken’s success has chipped away at the notion that reaching zero traffic deaths is more aspirational than achievable.

“That goal is obviously bold,” said Leah Shahum, founder and director of the Vision Zero Network, a nonprofit advocating for street safety. “It’s also meant to help us kind of shake off the complacency that we’ve had for too long that traffic deaths are inevitable, that what we’re experiencing today is just an unfortunate and unavailable byproduct of modern society. That’s not the case.”

While Hoboken’s plan has numerous components, including lower speed limits and staggered traffic lights, daylighting is often credited as one of the biggest reasons its fatalities have dropped to zero.

Ryan Sharp, the city’s transportation director, said when roads need to be repaved, Hoboken takes the additional step of cordoning off the street corners to widen curbs and shorten crosswalks. It’s already illegal to park at an intersection in Hoboken, but drivers often do anyway if there aren’t physical barriers.

Some of the new concrete structures are equipped with bike racks, benches and even rain garden planters that help absorb stormwater runoff. If there isn’t enough money for an infrastructure solution right away, the city puts up temporary bollards.

“There really isn’t a silver bullet or any magic, innovative thing where we’ve cracked a code,” Sharp said. “Our approach has been more about focusing on the fundamentals. We’ve created a program where we’re layering these things in year after year.”

But removing parking from a place where it’s in short supply has critics.

Joe Picolli, who opened Hoboken Barber Shop on Washington Street in 2018, said the curb extensions — or bumpouts — have made it difficult for downtown merchants to win back business lost during the pandemic.

“Before the bumpouts, there were a lot more buses, a lot more cars, a lot more parking,” said Picolli, who lives in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, and sometimes has to trail street sweepers to find parking. “It’s good as far as people walking on the street, but it’s bad because you’re not getting the flow from other towns.”

Although a bit larger than its Mile Square City nickname would imply, Hoboken ranks fourth nationwide in population density, trailing three other New Jersey cities and two spots ahead of New York, according to 2022 census data.

While the compact footprint means everyone is within range of public transit, cars still crowd the major streets and curbsides.

“We’re not New York City, but we’re not a suburb, either,” said Tammy Peng, who has lived in Hoboken for more than 15 years. “We’re kind of a weird in between. A lot of families keep a car because they want to run errands on the weekend, but Monday to Friday they’re commuting into the city.”

While daylighting slightly lengthens her trips to soccer practice or the grocery store, Peng said it’s much easier to spot pedestrians crossing the street.

Overall fatality numbers have remained largely unchanged since New York joined the Vision Zero movement in 2014 with a plan that included widening some curbs. Mayor Eric Adams boosted the city’s commitment in November by promising to daylight 1,000 intersections each year.

Some cities have even used the practice to beautify their downtowns. Baltimore hired artists to liven up curb extensions with geometric shapes and vibrant colors.

States are embracing daylighting as well. More than 40 had enacted some sort of daylighting law when California’s Legislature approved a new statewide rule in 2023 that prohibits parking within 20 feet (6 meters) of an intersection. Cities can set shorter distances with proof their plans are safe. Violators started receiving warnings in January and face fines beginning early next year.

Assemblymember Alex Lee, who authored California’s legislation, said he was troubled by the fact that his state’s traffic fatalities were even higher than the national average, with around 1,100 pedestrians killed in both 2021 and 2022. Deaths were recorded at a similar pace through the first six months of 2023.

Although cities in the nation’s most populous state range from behemoth metropolises to sparsely populated rural communities, Lee figured a statewide standard would eliminate any confusion. The only thing better, he contends, would be a national standard.

“Just as I assume in every state you can’t park in front of a fire hydrant or can’t park close to the train track, it should be the same whether you’re in California or Nebraska,” Lee said.

Stefanie Seskin, director of policy and practice at the National Association of City Transportation Officials, said signs are fine, but not nearly as effective as infrastructure changes.

“It certainly takes a next level of chutzpah for a driver to park on a curb extension than it does to park where a sign says ‘please don’t,’” Seskin said.

Jeff Speck, author of the book “Walkable City,” which makes the case for pedestrian-friendly downtowns, commends cities like Hoboken for improving visibility at intersections. However, he said some communities go too far by taking away too many parking spaces without adding physical barriers, creating broad “sight triangles” leading to increased speeding.

“What a number of cities have done is overreacted to the laudable goal of daylighting and placed oversized no-parking zones around every driveway and curb cut,” Speck said. “That’s counterproductive.”

In 2012, Seattle was one of the first major U.S. cities to pursue zero traffic deaths. Mike McGinn, the mayor at the time, said he wanted to recalibrate the public’s expectation of road safety to make it more akin to their thoughts on airplane safety, where no fatality is considered acceptable.

Why, he asks, should downtown areas where people work, shop, or attend entertainment events have to settle for a lower standard?

“This is literally the easiest real estate that should be given over to safety,” said McGinn, now executive director of the pedestrian advocacy group America Walks. “It’s low-hanging fruit.”

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Business

John Cena announces retirement from in-ring competition in 2025, WWE says By Reuters

Published

4 hours ago

July 7, 2024

Reuters

(Reuters) – U.S. wrestling superstar and actor John Cena announced retirement from in-ring competition in 2025, World Wrestling (NYSE:) Entertainment (WWE) said in a post on social media platform X on Saturday.

“John Cena announces retirement from in-ring competition, stating that WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas will be his last,” WWE said.

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Business

Recession indicator is close to sounding the alarm as unemployment rises

Published

11 hours ago

July 6, 2024

Jason Ma

While unemployment is still historically low, its rate of increase could be a sign of deteriorating economic conditions. That’s where the so-called Sahm Rule comes in.

It says that when the three-month moving average of the jobless rate rises by at least a half-percentage point from its low during the previous 12 months, then a recession has started. This rule would have signaled every recession since 1970.

Based on the latest unemployment figures from the Labor Department’s monthly report on Friday, the gap between the two has expanded to 0.43 in June from 0.37 in May.

It’s now at the highest level since March 2021, when the economy was still recovering from the pandemic-induced crash.

The creator of the rule, Claudia Sahm, was an economist at the Federal Reserve and is now chief economist at New Century Advisors. She has previously explained that even from low levels a rising unemployment rate can set off a negative feedback loop that leads to a recession.

“When workers lose paychecks, they cut back on spending, and as businesses lose customers, they need fewer workers, and so on,” she wrote in a Bloomberg opinion column in November, adding that once this feedback loop starts, it is usually self-reinforcing and accelerates.

But she also said the pandemic may have caused so many disruptions in the economy and the labor market that indicators like the Sahm Rule that are based on unemployment may not be as accurate right now.

A few weeks ago, however, Sahm told CNBC that the Federal Reserve risks sending the economy into a recession by continuing to hold off on rate cuts.

“My baseline is not recession,” she said on June 18. “But it’s a real risk, and I do not understand why the Fed is pushing that risk. I’m not sure what they’re waiting for.”

That came days after the Fed’s June policy meeting when central bankers kept rates steady after holding them at 5.25%-5.5%—the highest since 2001—since July 2023.

The Fed meets again at the end of this month and is expected to remain on hold, but odds are rising that a cut could happen in September.

Sahm also said last month that the Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s stated preference to wait for a deterioration in job gains is a mistake and that policymakers should instead focus on the rate of change in the labor market.

“We’ve gone into recession with all different levels of unemployment,” she explained. “These dynamics feed on themselves. If people lose their jobs, they stop spending, [and] more people lose jobs.”

Meanwhile, Wall Street has had a more sanguine view of the economy, citing last year’s widespread recession predictions that proved wrong as well as the AI boom that’s helping to fuel a wave of investment and earnings growth.

Last month, Neuberger Berman senior portfolio manager Steve Eisman also pointed to the boost in infrastructure spending.

“We’re just powering through, and I think the only conclusion you can reach is that the U.S. economy is more dynamic than it’s ever been in its history,” he told CNBC.

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Business

Joe Biden rejects calls to quit presidential race as clamour grows for his exit

Published

11 hours ago

July 6, 2024

Lauren Fedor

Joe Biden faced a growing clamour among Democrats to drop out of the 2024 presidential race on the weekend despite stepped-up public appearances aimed at proving he is mentally fit to take on Donald Trump.

Biden has two campaign events in the swing state of Pennsylvania on Sunday after a high-stakes primetime interview on Friday night failed to reassure fellow Democrats panicked by the 81-year-old’s shaky debate performance last week.

“It’s the worst possible outcome,” one veteran Democratic operative told the Financial Times after Biden’s interview aired on ABC News. “Not nearly strong enough to make us feel better, but not weak enough to convince Jill [Biden] to urge him to pull the plug.”

David Axelrod, the architect of Barack Obama’s successful 2008 presidential campaign, warned after the interview that Biden was “dangerously out-of-touch with the concerns people have about his capacities moving forward and his standing in this race”.

The roll call of Democrats calling for Biden to withdraw was joined on Saturday by Angie Craig, a House member from a swing district in Minnesota.

“President Biden is a good man & I appreciate his lifetime of service,” Craig wrote on social media platform X.

“But I believe he should step aside for the next generation of leadership. The stakes are too high.”

NBC News reported that the Democratic leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, was set to discuss the president’s candidacy among colleagues on Sunday.

Throughout the roughly 20-minute interview on ABC, Biden rejected opinion polls that show him trailing Trump both nationwide and in the pivotal swing states that will determine the election outcome.

“I don’t think anybody is more qualified to be president or win this race than me,” Biden said.

The president also dodged questions about whether he would be willing to undergo cognitive and neurological testing, at one point replying: “I have a cognitive test every single day, every day I have that test.”

Biden added: “You know, not only am I campaigning, I am running the world . . . for example, today, before I came out here, I am on the phone with the prime minister of, well anyway, I shouldn’t get into the detail, with Netanyahu, I’m on the phone with the new prime minister of England.” The president appeared to be referencing a call he had on Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and another on Friday with new UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

In another exchange, Biden appeared to suggest that nobody would be able to convince him to suspend his re-election bid, saying: “If the Lord almighty tells me to, I might do that.”

“It seems that the only person who still believes Biden should still be in the race is Biden,” said one top Democratic donor. Another Democratic donor called the interview “pathetic”, while another said it was “too little, too late”.

Many Democratic lawmakers, party operatives and influential donors have privately called for Biden to suspend his re-election campaign after last week’s debate reignited questions about the president’s age and fitness for office. But more critics have been willing to go public with their concerns in recent days.

Maura Healey, the Democratic governor of Massachusetts, became the first state governor to suggest Biden step aside on Friday. Healey was among governors who met the president for emergency talks at the White House this week.

She issued a statement urging him to “listen to the American people and carefully evaluate whether he remains our best hope to defeat Donald Trump”.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported on Friday that Mark Warner, a senator from Virginia, was working to assemble a group of Democratic senators to ask Biden to exit the race. A spokesperson for Warner did not respond to a request for comment.

Earlier on Friday, Biden delivered a defiant speech in Wisconsin, a swing state, telling a crowd of supporters that he would not bow to the mounting pressure on him to quit.

“Let me say this as clearly as I can: I’m staying in the race. I’ll beat Donald Trump.”

Reporters travelling with Biden noted several people standing outside the venue where he spoke in Wisconsin holding signs urging him to “bow out” and “pass the torch”. Another sign read: “Give it up, Joe.”

His campaign on Friday said it would spend another $50mn on advertising in the month of July, including for ad spots that would run during this month’s Republican National Convention and the Olympics.

Biden’s vice-president Kamala Harris, California governor Gavin Newsom and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer — all seen as possible candidates should Biden step aside — have remained publicly loyal to the president’s campaign. At a July 4 celebration at the White House on Thursday evening, Biden joined hands with his vice-president as some people in the crowd chanted, “four more years”.

But other prominent Democrats are more reluctant to share the stage with the president. When Biden visited Wisconsin on Friday, he was joined by the state’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers — but not Tammy Baldwin, the state’s Democratic senator, who is polling far ahead of the president.

The latest FiveThirtyEight polling average shows Trump leading Biden by just shy of two points in Wisconsin.