The Most Dangerous Intersections for Cyclists in New York City

Bruckner Boulevard and Longwood Avenue in the Bronx tops our safety ranking of New York City intersections: 93 individuals injured at a single corner from 2023 through 2025, according to NYC Crash Mapper records. Brooklyn fills 8 of the remaining 11 rows. In December 2025, Transportation Alternatives identified 116 particularly dangerous locations citywide where 5 or more people have been killed or seriously injured since January 2022. Nearly 3 million New Yorkers, including families with children who bike to school, live within a half mile of one.

A ranking cannot redesign these locations, but it shows where to ride as if no driver sees you, and where the city’s own records can support a personal injury claim. An intersection with a documented accident history is a known hazard, not a freak accident, and that distinction carries legal weight. If you are hurt in one of these areas, an experienced bicycle accident attorney can use that history to build your case.

Which NYC Intersections Injure the Most People?

Bruckner Boulevard and Longwood Avenue lead with 93 injuries, and Brooklyn dominates the table. These totals count everyone injured at the intersection, not one group alone.

Measured by total collisions, the ranking shifts. New York City Open Data accident records place Tillary Street and Flatbush Avenue Extension in Downtown Brooklyn near 180 accidents per year, the highest volume of any street intersection in the borough. Riders exit the Brooklyn Bridge path into merge lanes designed for cars and motor vehicles.

How We Ranked NYC’s Dangerous Intersections

Not all intersections carry the same risk for riders in New York. We drew on multiple public sources, including the New York City Department of Transportation, Crash Stat, OpenData, Vision Zero View, and NYC Crash Mapper, cross-referencing for consistent patterns.

Factors included traffic volume, congestion, accident frequency, road conditions, signal timing, and whether a protected bike lane exists. Severity weighed heavily: a location with fewer accidents but more serious injury or death among pedestrians and riders struck by motor vehicles may outrank a busier but less lethal spot. These rankings give bicycle accident attorneys concrete evidence when handling cases tied to high-risk locations.

Most Dangerous Intersections in NYC

The intersections listed above are not random spots. The list reflects accident records from New York City over the past two years, 2023 through 2025.

Dangerous Intersections for Cyclists in Manhattan

The NYPD reports that 18% of all traffic accidents in the city took place in Manhattan. Pay extra attention crossing any of these New York intersections:

• West 153rd St and Macombs Pl.
• Chrystie St and Grand St.
• Bleecker St and MacDougal St.
• East 59th Street and 2nd Avenue Manhattan.

Narrow streets, blind turns, congestion, and fading road markings leave riders exposed, particularly in areas with poor visibility and limited lighting.

Dangerous Intersections for Cyclists in Brooklyn and Queens

Brooklyn and Queens have some of the city’s worst intersection accident areas. Wide roads encourage speeding, and heavy trucks and buses share lanes with cyclists on roads where outdated infrastructure cannot handle the traffic volume. Local drivers barely yield the right-of-way, and 174 accidents happened in the borough in September.

• Atlantic Avenue and Flatbush Avenue Brooklyn.
• Tillary Street and Brooklyn Bridge Blvd/Adams St.
• Bedford Ave and Clarkson Ave.
• Pennsylvania Avenue and Linden Boulevard Brooklyn.
• 21st and Hoyt Ave N.
• Northern Blvd and Queens Expressway service road near 51st St.

Dangerous Intersections for Cyclists in the Bronx and Staten Island

Neither the Bronx nor Staten Island matches the traffic volume of other New York City boroughs, but three of the most dangerous locations in New York are in the Bronx. Cycling accident rates in Staten Island are lower; 11 riders were injured in September 2025. The borough still has problematic intersections:

• Clove Road and Victory Boulevard.
• Hylan Boulevard and Reid Avenue.
• New Dorp Lane and Hylan Boulevard.

Many of these areas are designed to fail those who use them, and commuters and their families pay the price.

Why Do So Many Bicycle Crashes Happen at Intersections?

Intersections compress every road conflict into a few square yards. In 2023, they accounted for 28% of American cycling fatalities (NHTSA, Traffic Safety Facts, 2023). That same year, NYC DOT recorded 5,702 bicycle-motor vehicle accidents citywide, leaving 5,158 accident victims injured and 30 killed (NYC DOT Bicycle Crash Data Report 2023). In 2024, driver inattention topped the list for cycling-related accidents, ahead of failure-to-yield violations and disregarded traffic signals. Drivers making left turns account for roughly a fifth of fatal intersection accidents.

NYC DOT evidence shows 77% of New York City’s 2023 cycling fatalities involved e-bikes (23 of 30), even as deaths among pedal bike riders kept declining. If you ride an e-bike, treat every intersection on this list as less forgiving than the numbers suggest.

Every cause on this list doubles as evidence. When a motorist turns across your lane, runs a red light, or opens a door into your path, the at-fault party violated a rule of the road. That violation constitutes negligence per se, and a negligent driver bears liability for the accident and owes compensation for every resulting loss. That is the line between a bad-luck story and a viable personal injury claim.

Is NYC Fixing Its Dangerous Intersections?

Vision Zero launched in 2014, and the NYC Streets Plan followed in 2021. By 2025, annual traffic fatalities reached a record low of 205. The cycling toll in New York fell from 30 in 2023 to 24 in 2024.

The Streets Plan mandates 50 miles of protected bike lanes per year; the city built only 29 miles in 2024 (City & State New York, March 2025). Transportation Alternatives estimates 98% of city streets still lack protected bike lanes. Long Island and outer-borough roads remain underserved, but where protected infrastructure exists, the results are measurable:

The risk concentrates on unprotected streets: 83% of cyclists killed in the first half of 2024 died where no protected bike lanes existed (Transportation Alternatives, 2024). The city also daylighted more than 1,200 intersections in 2024, removing parked vehicles from corners so drivers and riders can see each other before reaching crosswalks.

How to Ride Safely Through a Dangerous Intersection

Ride as if no driver sees you, because the leading cause of intersection accidents in New York City is driver inattention.

• Expect the hook. Right hooks and left crosses kill. Make eye contact with a driver making a left turn, or assume you have no right-of-way.
• Assume you are invisible. A motorist looking at a phone registers nothing. Front and rear lights improve visibility in poor lighting; run them day and night.
• Hold your line. When lane markings vanish, maintain your position and direction. Drifting toward the curb invites the squeeze, and abrupt lane changes from cars weaving through traffic increase the risks.
• Do not drift at the red. A glance at your phone at a red light is enough to send you into the bumper ahead.
• Know your rights. If you rode legally and sustained injuries, the law is in your favor. That changes what you do in the first hour after a bicycle vs car accident or any motor vehicle accident on New York roads.
• Wear the helmet. New York requires one for riders under 14 and for all Class Three e-bike riders. Riding without one does not bar your claim, though the insurance company may argue you contributed to head trauma. Wearing one eliminates that argument and protects your chance at a full settlement.

None of this guarantees a clean crossing on any route through the city, but it purchases the reaction time that separates a near miss from a hospitalization that impacts your life and your family’s.

What Should You Do After an Intersection Crash?

Treat the intersection itself as part of your case. Its documented crash record can prove what a driver’s insurer will deny: that the hazard was known. Photograph the signals, the lane markings, the sight lines, and whatever obstructs them, along with the vehicle, its plate, and your injuries. Then search the intersection in NYC Open Data’s collision database.

Call 911 and get examined even if you feel functional. Adrenaline masks fractures, and the police report timestamps your crash. Collect witness names and phone numbers, not first names alone. Preserve the helmet, the bicycle, and the clothing exactly as they are: physical evidence. Our step-by-step guide to what to do after a bicycle accident walks through the first 72 hours.