The New Jersey city where Frank Sinatra was born and crooned his first notes is now singing a happy tune – when it comes to traffic safety.
Hoboken hasn’t had a single car-crash death — including passengers, drivers, pedestrians or cyclists — in nine consecutive years, with the last fatality occurring on Jan. 17, 2017.
The city of 60,000 is proving that with smart design, political leadership and community trust, streets can be built for life – not loss.
“We fully committed to updating our infrastructure, and it not only saved lives but made our streets much easier to navigate, whether you’re walking your kids to school or biking to work,” said Democratic state Assemblyman Ravi Bhalla.
“Hoboken should be seen as a model to replicate, because every community has the power to make those same changes,” said Bhall, who recently ended his time as the city’s two-term mayor.
“I’m going to keep pushing at the state level so other towns have the tools and funding they need to keep their residents safe.”
A typical American city of Hoboken’s population averages about six to eight traffic fatalities per year, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Bhalla, who’s lived in Hoboken since 2000 and served as mayor from 2018 to Jan.13, conceived the idea of making the compact city safer as a young father, when he was forced to push his child’s stroller dangerously close to traffic in order to check if it was safe to cross certain streets.
That caused him to begin a five year analysis of Hoboken’s crash data, which showed that between 2014 and 2018, pedestrians and cyclists made up just 8% of crash victims but accounted for 40% of serious injuries and death.
Even more striking: nearly 90% of those crashes happened in crosswalks due to poor visibility on the part of drivers and those on foot or bikes.
In 2019, Bhalla launched Hoboken’s “Vision Zero” Task Force, and city leaders redesigned roads with vulnerable users in mind.
Sidewalks were pushed outward into intersections, shortening crossing distances, and forcing drivers to slow down. Pedestrians got a seven-second head start at crosswalk signals. Speed limits dropped to 20 mph, and brighter paint made bike lanes and crosswalks impossible to miss.
New Jersey law already bans parking near intersections, but enforcement alone wasn’t enough. Instead of tickets, Hoboken installed physical barriers — simple plastic posts, planters and curb extensions — that made illegal parking impossible.
Some former parking spaces became rain gardens, bike parking, or wider sidewalks.
During the traffic transformation, residents weighed in through surveys, meetings and tested changes before they were rolled out citywide. Near-miss reports from locals and camera data revealed dangers before someone got seriously hurt, helping leaders react proactively.
The city’s new mayor, Emily B. Jabbour, sworn in earlier this month, has vowed to keep up the high standards of safety.