Universal Daylighting Has Majority Support on the City Council — Will Speaker Adams Give It a Vote?

Your move, Adrienne Adams.

A landmark bill to free up intersections from parked cars so drivers can see crossing pedestrians picked up majority support on the City Council last week — but Speaker Adrienne Adams isn’t saying whether she’ll bring it to a vote.

The bill, introduced by Julie Won (D-Queens) at the end of last year, would prohibit cars from parking within 20 feet of intersections to improve visibility where pedestrians would otherwise cross from behind parked cars. The bill also mandates DOT install hardened safety barriers for a “minimum of 1,000 intersections per year,” further improving pedestrian infrastructure.

Success of the design practice — known as “daylighting” — is evident across the river in Hoboken, New Jersey, which saw zero traffic deaths in the seven years after banning parking at corners. In almost every state, New York included, the practice is legally enshrined, but city has a state-granted exemption to let parking clutter intersections and cut off sight lines for drivers.

But maybe not forever. With the added sponsorship of Council Members Frank Morano (R-Staten Island) and Darlene Mealy (D-Brooklyn) last month, over half of Council members have lent their support to the safety bill, giving it enough momentum to pass a future vote.

But it remains unclear if the speaker, the only official with power to call the vote, will let that happen.

“Introduction 1138 is going through the Council’s legislative process, which is deliberative and allows for thorough public engagement and input,” a council spokesperson said in an email to Streetsblog. The spokesperson said that Speaker Adams’s decision hinges on “scheduling and council member availability,” but did not provide a timeline for that decision.

Advocacy groups have pushed for universal daylighting to save lives before more are lost to dangerous intersections since the tragic death of 7-year-old Dolma Naadhun on a street corner in 2023. Dozens of activists gathered on the steps of City Hall in April to demand passage of the bill alongside Council Member Won.

About 50 percent of traffic fatalities and 70 percent of injuries occur in intersections, according to the DOT. Despite this, the DOT has pushed back on universal daylighting and instead proposed selective implementation at advocates’ disapproval.

“Something as simple as being able to see when you’re crossing the street? That’s something the city should be interested in,” said Kevin LaCherra, a Greenpoint organizer for the movement. “The city can end that concern, and this is one of the fastest ways to do that.”

A similar piece of universal daylighting legislation is making its way through the statehouse, proposed by Brooklyn Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon in 2024.

Since Queens Community Board 1 passed the first resolution supporting universal daylighting in June 2023, 22 other communities — including Bronx Community Board 6 just last week — have shown widespread support for the initiative.

The tradeoff between parking space and safety is a necessary one, said Jackson Chabot, director of advocacy & organizing at advocacy group Open Plans (which shares a parent company with Streetsblog). Chabot commended the two dozen Community Boards for prioritizing safety over parking.

“Maybe a child’s life is more important than a parking space. That’s a policy conversation, but also a personal one,” he said, emphasizing that the bill would bring safety benefits for every neighborhood. “Council members and their staffers understand the nature of intersections — they’re busy, they’re chaotic. That’s easy to understand no matter where you live in the city. That’s a problem everywhere.”

Beyond simple safety gains, the bill would make room for additional pedestrian-friendly infrastructure like bus boarding stations and stormwater drains and give communities more of a say in their streets, said LaCherra. “Folks agree that this is a common sense, straightforward proposal that puts power in the hands of communities that addresses traffic violence,” he said.

Activists’ campaign to convince Speaker Adams to pass the bill has just begun, and they urge her to consider the long-term benefits of putting pedestrians’ lives over mere parking spaces.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for the city council as a whole to have a legacy of accomplishment on street safety,” said LaCherra. “Every community deserves that degree of safety. If implemented to the fullest extent of the law, it would be one of the most impactful pieces of street safety legislation that the city has ever gone ahead with.”