How Syracuse, NY Improved Road Safety and Connected Neighborhoods
In Syracuse, New York, change doesn’t always roar— here, it hums, glides, and pedals. It crosses intersections with high visibility crosswalks and weaves through traffic-calmed streets where children can play without fear. It’s the hum of a slowing car engine, the click of a bicycle gear, and the laughter of neighbors walking to the park and the sounds of children walking to school. This is the sound of a city rethinking its streets. With its innovative Neighborhood Greenway Program and Speed Hump/Cushion Pilot Program, Syracuse turned conventional traffic infrastructure on its head—reclaiming residential streets as spaces for people, not just vehicles. When Syracuse enlisted the expertise of Fisher Associates, what started as a response to speeding and unsafe streets evolved into a broader movement to create safer, more connected, and more livable communities.
Why Speed Matters: A Safety Wake Up Call
Vehicle speed is more than a statistic—it’s a public safety issue. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), higher vehicle speeds drastically increase the likelihood and severity of crashes, particularly in residential neighborhoods. For Syracuse, this had become a growing concern, especially as more families were taking to the streets, walking dogs, riding bikes, and simply trying to enjoy their neighborhoods.
The city’s planners knew that simply painting more bike lanes wouldn’t be enough. Streets needed to slow down—literally. And thus, with the help of the expert transportation planning and engineering services at Fisher Associates, Syracuse began a bold journey toward traffic calming through the Neighborhood Greenway Program and Speed Hump/Cushion Pilot. Central to this program was the development of neighborhood greenways and traffic calming solutions.
About Neighborhood Greenways
You may not notice them at first; they don’t broadcast “new infrastructure” the way a highway expansion might. But neighborhood greenways are quietly revolutionizing urban transportation. These low-traffic, bike-and-pedestrian-prioritized routes are designed to make active travel safer and more appealing. Using traffic calming features like speed humps or cushions, curb bump-outs, neighborhood traffic circles, and bike infrastructure, they link parks, schools, neighborhoods, and community centers with traffic calming features that slow cars and prioritize people. Greenways aim to match the speed of drivers to the pace of everyday life in neighborhoods: calm, deliberate, and human centered.
Connecting Communities One Corridor at a Time
Syracuse worked with Fisher Associates in 2024 to launch three flagship corridors as part of its Neighborhood Greenway initiative:
- Lemoyne Avenue Greenway – Connecting residential areas to parks and institutions like Lemoyne Elementary School, Regional Farmers Market, Regional Transportation Center and NBT Bank Stadium.
- Court Street Bike Lanes – Establishing safer east-west cycling routes through key commercial and residential corridors.
- Hawley-Green/Eastwood Greenway – A vibrant route linking historic neighborhoods, schools, and community destinations like Lincoln Park and Sunnycrest Park.
To be sure, these projects represented more than improved or new infrastructure—they served as a blueprint for a future in which every neighborhood is connected, calm, and accessible for all.
Speed Hump/Cushion Pilot: Putting Theory into Practice
While greenways completed the vision, speed humps and cushions were the engineering tools used to set the vision. Syracuse’s 2021-2023 Speed Hump/Cushion Pilot, rolled out prior to the greenway plan, tested physical traffic calming at 33 locations in parks and residential areas.
By the Numbers: The Impact of Traffic Calming
The results of the Speed Hump/Cushion Pilot Program speak volumes based on speed data collected by Syracuse before and after installing the humps and cushions. The findings show consistent—and in some cases dramatic—reductions in average vehicle speeds.
- Onondaga Park Drive: 39% average speed reduction
- North Collingwood Avenue: 20% average speed reduction
- Kirk Avenue: 50% average speed reduction
- Strathmore Drive: 46% average speed reduction
- Hickock Avenue: 21% average speed reduction
- Shonnard Street: 11% average speed reduction
Even more telling are the streets that didn’t see success—like Stafford Avenue, where average speeds actually increased. These anomalies provide valuable lessons for future planning—highlighting the importance of location, road geometry, and community context.
Carving A National Model
The success of these projects has laid a strong foundation. Looking ahead, Syracuse city officials aim to scale these initiatives with broader community engagement, additional greenway corridors and bicycle infrastructure, enhanced road signage and smart infrastructure, and ongoing evaluation and refinements based on resident feedback and performance data.
As cities across the U.S. look for solutions to traffic safety and community health, our work with Syracuse offers a compelling case study in low-cost, high-impact urban design. More so, it inspires a vision of what the future of neighborhoods looks like—not faster, but smarter, safer, and more connected. As evidenced by the Neighborhood Greenway Program and Speed Hump/Cushion Pilot Program in Syracuse, slowing down isn’t always a setback; in this case, it’s progress.
The Fisher Difference
Fisher Associates, P.E., L.S., L.A., D.P.C., is a multidisciplinary design services firm headquartered in Rochester, NY, with nine locations nationwide. The firm provides civil/site engineering, transportation engineering, electrical engineering, landscape architecture, architecture, planning, environmental, surveying, GIS, construction inspection, precast engineering and construction engineering services to public and private sector clients across numerous markets. All services are delivered through the firm’s signature “Clientship” philosophy, which emphasizes not only customized, innovative quality solutions but also an exceptional client experience driven by clear communication, deep expertise, and proactive client advocacy.
At Fisher Associates, we genuinely believe that thoughtful design can create more livable, connected, and vibrant neighborhoods—just like Syracuse’s. If you’re ready to reimagine your streets, enhance safety, and bring people together through smarter infrastructure, we’re here to help.
Contact us today to learn how our team can support your community’s goals through expert planning, engineering, architecture and design services.
