New Yorkers have long asserted their rights over cars on the city’s streets, identifying with Dustin Hoffman in “Midnight Cowboy” who barks, “I’m walkin’ here!” at a cab that nearly hits him as he tries to cross the street. Recent changes in street width, curb size, crosswalks, bike lanes and speed limits that were made as part of the city’s adoption of Vision Zero in 2014, a program intended to eliminate traffic deaths, are a natural extension of this pedestrian-first mind-set. The street life of the suburbs, however, is built around a landscape that was designed from the beginning to give automobiles priority. In Connecticut, highway entrance ramps dating back more than half a century may be contributing to an alarming increase of head-on collisions. And while several New Jersey communities seem eager to align with Vision Zero, the state Legislature remains hostile to implementing traffic enforcement technology.

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