These cities have America's safest streets
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The New York, Boston and Portland, Oregon, metros have the country's safest roadways, per StreetLight Data's new "U.S. Safe Streets Index."
- That's based on five key factors among the 100 biggest U.S. metros: vehicle miles traveled, different speeds between vehicles, speed-based pedestrian risk, speeding in residential zones, and truck activity.
The big picture: "Larger metros tend to perform better overall for roadway safety, despite popular misconceptions that big cities are more dangerous," said the transportation analytics firm.
Zoom in: "Boston is the only metro studied that scores in the top 30 across all five safety factors," StreetLight said.
- It cites traffic-calming measures plus the city's older layout and sometimes snowy weather, which "may help keep speeds low and consistent."
Portland, meanwhile, scores highly overall but could use improvement on speeding in pedestrian areas and truck activity per capita.
- Only two big metros cracked the top 10 for safe residential speeds: Los Angeles and Miami.
The bottom line: The index "offers us an opportunity to identify and study metros across the country to understand the best levers for improvement," said StreetLight CEO Kevin Hathaway.
