The first six months of 2025 saw the lowest amount of traffic fatalities since before 2019. So what does this mean for Vision Zero and for the rest of the year?
Part of our effort to meet Philadelphia’s goal of zero traffic fatalities in 2050 includes us analyzing fatal crash data throughout the year. Earlier this year, we published a blog analyzing 2024 crash data and this blog will walk through where we are at half way through 2025 (Prepare yourself for some graphs!). This work is coupled with our advocacy for policies that would build better infrastructure and enforce laws that change driver behavior. Currently we are advocating to legalize parking protected bike lanes, an effort we have been working on since 2017 (You can read more about the history and take action here).
We take the time analyzing fatal crash data (data sets can be found here) to track trends but also to get a sense of every person who lost their lives in Philadelphia from traffic violence. This blog will talk about numbers but these are people and the only acceptable number of traffic fatalities is zero. The data reflected here removes any people who were killed by acts of nature, medical emergencies, or out of the transportation network. For example if someone died of a heart attack and then crashed into a fixed object we won’t include their death in our analysis. We are publishing this analysis in August to include anyone who passed away from their injuries within the last month. At the end of the year we will include anyone who passed away longer than a month after their crash to try and fully capture the impacts of traffic violence.
In the first six months of 2025, 39 people have been killed in traffic crashes in Philadelphia. 17 of those 39 people were people walking and 3 were riding bicycles. We have been comparing crash data to 2019 in order to track the impacts of the pandemic on traffic safety. In the first 6 months of 2019, 48 people were killed in traffic crashes, 17 of the 48 were people walking and 0 were riding bicycles. We are encouraged to see the total of fatalities below 2019 levels for the first time in the last 6 years, however people walking and biking still make up a larger percentage of traffic fatalities.
Since 2022, there has been a slow downward trend of fatalities in the first 6 months, with this year seeing the greatest decrease. However, starting in 2022, the second half of the year tends to trend upwards.
It’s hard to tease out exactly what’s caused the downward trend. It could be traffic patterns returning to normal after the pandemic, or the impact of automated speed cameras, or the increase of high quality bike lanes and traffic calming. It could also be a combination of the three. Whatever the reason, this is the time to continue investing in proven safety infrastructure and enforcement, and reinforce the trend toward zero.
In Philadelphia, we’re looking forward to:
- Automated speed cameras on Broad Street
- School zone speed cameras
- The swing bridge opening, connecting Southwest Philly to Center City
- Concrete protection on Spruce and Pine Street bike lanes
- More traffic calming around schools across the city
- Increased funding for Vision Zero
As we continue our fight to eliminate all traffic fatalities by advocating for more funding in the city and encouraging neighborhood efforts for protected bike lanes and traffic calming, Pennsylvanians need the state to step up and do their part to save lives. The solutions are proven and available, but it will be nearly impossible to reach zero deaths if more is not done across all levels of government.