The latest analysis from the Tri-State Transportation Campaign finds that drivers struck 6,270 people who were walking or biking on Long Island in the three-year period from 2014 to 2016.

Long Island roads are typical of suburban areas in the United States: local roadways feed collector roads, and collector roads feed major arterials. These major arterials are designed to move motorized vehicles, often at the expense of people using other modes, especially pedestrians and bicyclists. It comes as no surprise that these arterial roadways, as previous TSTC crash reports have found, account for the lion’s share of crashes involving people walking and riding bicycles.

The analysis, We’re Walking (and Biking) Here!, represents a departure from TSTC’s prior Long Island traffic crash analyses:

• While our past Most Dangerous Roads analyses focused solely on fatality data, We’re Walking (and Biking) Here! includes data on crashes, injuries and fatalities.
• This analysis, as the name would suggest, includes data on not only driver-pedestrian crashes, but also driver-bicyclist crashes.
• This analysis includes a crash-per-mile rate (our previous Most Dangerous Roads analysis only included totals).
• In addition to the roads that had the most crashes, We’re Walking (and Biking) Here! also includes a list of intersections ranked by total crashes in each county.
• Unlike our Most Dangerous Roads analyses, which relied upon data from NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), We’re Walking (and Biking) Here! uses a broader and more recent data set from the New York State Department of Transportation.

We’re Walking (and Biking) Here! found that NY Route 24 (also known as Hempstead Turnpike, Fulton Avenue and Conklin Street) was Nassau County’s most dangerous road for walking and biking. There were 256 crashes involving people walking or biking in this corridor over the period studied. These crashes resulted in a total of 238 reported injures and six fatalities.

Although Route 24 saw the most crashes, the deadliest road in Nassau County was NY Route 27 (also known as Sunrise Highway). With 146 crashes over the three-year period, it ranked third in overall crashes. However, 11 people were struck and killed by drivers on this road during the period studied.

The analysis found that NY Route 25 (also known as Middle Country Road, Jericho Turnpike and Front Street) was Suffolk County’s most dangerous road for walking or biking. There were 224 crashes along this corridor between 2014 and 2016 that resulted in 206 injures and nine fatalities.

Just as in Nassau, the deadliest road in Suffolk was a road with fewer overall crashes. SR-110 (also known as New York Avenue, Walt Whitman Road and Broadway) had 141 total crashes between 2014 and 2016, but 10 fatalities.

Predictably, the roads with the most crashes tend to be longer roads. To control for length, We’re Walking (and Biking) Here also includes a crash per mile rate for the 10 most dangerous roads in each county, as well as interactive maps that highlight the where crashes are clustered in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

Nassau County

Suffolk County

The report also analyzes the most dangerous intersections in each county. In Nassau County, six of the 10 most dangerous intersections were located in Hempstead.

Nassau County

Dangerous intersections in Suffolk County tended to be much more dispersed. However, four of the 10 most dangerous intersections also included NY Route 110. This road was already noted as one of Suffolk’s most dangerous.

Suffolk County

Find interactive maps and fact sheets at tstc.org.

Mobilizing the Region is published by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a 501(c)(3) non-profit policy advocacy organization. If you’d like to support our work, please make a tax-deductible donation today.