The result is that members of the public who use such sites may have a false sense that roadways are safer than they actually are, because those automatically updated pages are not refreshing.<\/p>\n
It is unclear why the NYC Open Data page is broken.<\/p>\n \u201cThis dataset is temporarily not updating while its automated update process is being fixed,\u201d a \u201cnote\u201d at the top of the page states<\/a>. \u201cThis fix is expected to be completed during the month of August.\u201d<\/p>\n As of Sept. 8, it has not been fixed, nor has there been any explanation for the data smog.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m really frustrated,\u201d said Michael Freedman, who created Crashcount<\/a> to track \u201cthe relentless toll of traffic violence in New York City,\u201d as the site\u2019s mission statement states<\/a>. \u201cThe data isn\u2019t coming in. As a result, we are no longer able to provide independent analysis of the police crash data, so the public can\u2019t determine if the data confirms what the Department of Transportation is saying or not.\u201d<\/p>\n In order to understand the need for reliable and regularly updated data, one need only look at the crash statistics for the year.<\/p>\n Through June 11 \u2014 the last date the city updated the the public database \u2014\u00a0there were 36,195 crashes, or an average of 223.4 reported crashes every day.<\/p>\n But a casual user of Open Data might not realize that the database has not been updated \u2014 and might think that those 36,195 crashes through June 11 were actually through Aug. 30, which would lead to the conclusion that there are 149.6 reported crashes per day, which is one-third fewer than the 54,832 reported crashes through Aug. 30.<\/p>\n Freedman offered a specific example: Court Street has objectively become safer since the city completed the protected bike lane on that roadway. According to the DOT\u2019s less-functional \u201cVision Zero View<\/a>,\u201d which is based on raw NYPD data, there have been six injuries on the roadway through July 31, compared to 15 over the same period before the bike lane went in.<\/p>\n But Crashcount and Crashmapper users<\/a> would see only four injuries on the roadway, because two of them happened after June 11. ( made the comparison using Crashmapper in May, but an update would prove inaccurate.)<\/p>\n And neither user-friendly map shows any of the nine people who were killed by hit-and-run drivers citywide in August<\/a>.<\/p>\n One of the original designers of Crashmapper is frustrated that the data is not being updated.<\/p>\n \u201cCrash data is one of those things we have argued \u2014 repeatedly \u2014 to be automated properly and to be accurate,\u201d said Noel Hidalgo, now executive director<\/a> of BetaNYC, the civic group that advocates for a access to accurate information. \u201cOpen data is supposed to ensure faithful representation of crashes to the public to ensure that the public knows about the safety of the streets. But in this case, the data is purely up to the NYPD, which must create systems that maintain that data flow. NYPD has constantly needed advocacy to improve its practices.\u201d<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the NYPD, who declined to provide a name, declined to explain why the open data portal has gone so long without an update, referring our questions to the city Office of Technology and Innovation, which maintains the database.<\/p>\n The OTI spokesperson, Gloria Chin, declined to answer specific questions, saying only, \u201cThe work to improve access to the data is complete and undergoing a final review.\u201d (That comment was sent to Streetsblog on Aug. 28.)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/data-not-updated.png\")
This page has not been updated since June 11. Photo: NYC Open Data<\/a><\/p>\n