NYC DOT: Vision Zero project management

During the summer after my first year of graduate school, I worked with NYC DOT’s RIS team— a division focused on Vision Zero and eliminating serious injuries on city roads— where I contributed to multiple street improvement projects to enhance safety for all road users by collecting and analyzing crash and traffic data, mapping project locations, conducting field work, and supporting policy research to inform design and community engagement.

I spent most of my time on two re-designs. One was a two-mile corridor in Astoria, Queens, and the other was a large three-way intersection in the Bronx that had become a spot people came to street-race. The before-and-after of that intersection is below. Collaborating with planners and engineers, we narrowed crossing distances, repositioned stop lines, and introduced large, painted curb extensions, effectively “right-sizing” the intersection to discourage unsafe maneuvers. These interventions improved pedestrian access, traffic operations, and overall road safety.

The part I loved most was that none of it was guesswork. Every move started in the crash and traffic data, got checked against what I actually saw standing on the corner doing fieldwork, and ended up as a preliminary design I drew in AutoCAD. It was the first time I felt the whole loop: data, to a decision, to a thing that changes how a real street works while navigating the department and political realities that move a city.