The Impact of Streetlight Placement on Trends and Disparities in Pedestrian-Motor Vehicle Crashes
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21129999 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Cassandra Peitzman (0009-0000-4085-5255, Brigham and Women's Hospital, corresponding author), Kanglin Chen (0000-0001-8369-4615, Harvard University Press), Kori S Zachrison (0000-0001-8160-3257, Massachusetts General Hospital), Margaret Samuels‐Kalow (0000-0002-0576-8903, Massachusetts General Hospital), Margaret Samuels-Kalow |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 103 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 791-801 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-30 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Urban Health (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1099-3460 • E-ISSN: 1468-2869 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s11524-026-01098-8 |
| PMID | 42380400 |
| OpenAlex | W7166721007 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 12 |
Pedestrian-motor vehicle crashes are a major cause of preventable injury in urban environments. They have increased markedly over the past several decades, especially overnight, and with a disproportionate impact on pedestrians of color. Streetlights represent a potential tool to combat these trends, but empirical studies of their relationship with pedestrian trauma are limited. We use geospatial data from Boston (2016–2023) to assess the relationship between streetlight density (lights/road kilometer) by census tract on (1) pedestrian crashes, (2) changes in crash rates over time, (3) racial disparities in crash incidence, and (4) proportion of crashes occurring overnight. Pedestrian crashes decreased from 2016 to 2023 from 616 (0.55/km) to 421 (0.37/km), with higher streetlight densities associated with greater overall reductions (an additional −0.002 crashes/km/year per streetlight/km (95% CI [−0.003, −0.001]). Persistent racial disparities were observed, with 0.04 additional crashes/km/year (95% CI [0.02, 0.06]) per 10% residents of color. However, this association decreased by 0.004 crashes/km/year (95% CI [−0.01, −0.001]), and higher streetlight densities were associated with greater reductions (additional annual decrease of 0.0004 crashes/km/year for every streetlight/km (95% CI [−0.001, −0.0001]). Finally, the proportion of crashes occurring overnight increased from 37.6% to 45.1%. Streetlight density was negatively associated with overnight timing (adjusted odds ratio of 0.991; 95% CI [0.986, 0.997] per streetlight/km) but had no relationship with the time trend. We conclude that there may be a beneficial relationship between streetlight density and pedestrian safety, where census tracts with higher streetlight densities demonstrated greater improvements in overall crash rates and racial disparities
Census · Census tract · Crash · Odds · Odds ratio · Pedestrian · Poison control · Impact of Light on Environment and Health · Traffic and Road Safety · Urban Transport and Accessibility
Effect of reducing the posted speed limit to 30 km per hour on pedestrian motor vehicle collisions in Toronto, Canada - a quasi experimental, pre-post study
Racial disparities in pedestrian-related injury hospitalizations in the United States
Structural Racism and Pedestrian Safety
Neighborhood Social Inequalities in Road Traffic Injuries
Major urban road characteristics and injured pedestrians
| Highly cited | No |
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