A car backed up in the middle of the intersection, prompting a honk. A pedestrian couple wove between cars to cross the road without the walk sign on. A car switched lanes at the last minute to turn left at the lights. An e-bike accelerated through a red light.
These incidents all occurred within the same half-hour at Washington and Station streets, the intersection with the most reported near-collisions in town, according to a Brookline.News analysis of town data.
Brookline’s Near Miss Portal collects residents’ reports of close calls on the road, but the town has not yet done anything with the information. Brookline.News’ analysis of the data, however, reveals problem areas and trends.
A “near miss” is an incident where a crash nearly occurs, no property is damaged and no injuries occur. The town’s goal for implementing this data collection tool in January 2025 was to reveal potential infrastructure deficiency, like a faded crosswalk, or to identify conditions that encourage unsafe behavior by drivers, bikers or pedestrians.
As of mid-October, when the data was obtained, there had been 278 entries in the Near Miss Portal. Harvard Street is covered with them. There have been 47 reported near misses along the roughly 1.5 mile street — which accounts for about a fifth of all entries on the portal. Eight of the Harvard Street reports cite a bicyclist at fault for the near miss.
Brookline.News obtained the data from the town and mapped the reported incidents. Reports are represented by icons that symbolize the type of transportation used by the party at fault for the near miss. Click on a data point to access more information from the report. Twenty-nine reports did not include a location, and are not represented on the map. Reports that cited more than one type of transportation mode at fault for the near miss were separated on the map.
“We certainly appreciate the information that people are providing to us,” said Rob Guptill, Brookline’s associate director of transportation and mobility. “We are putting this information into this database to help inform future decisions.”
Guptill, who has worked for the town for under a year, said he learned of the near miss portal only when Brookline.News brought it to his attention. In looking at the data, he said it doesn’t seem to reveal any unexpected problem areas. The data, he said, will be used to inform decision making and resource allocation in future projects, but isn’t actively being used.
Over 1,800 crashes occurred on Brookline’s streets between 2019 and 2023, resulting in over 350 injuries and three deaths, according to the town’s Vision Zero Action Plan , a strategy aimed at reaching zero injuries and fatalities on Brookline streets.
Town analysis of MassDOT crash data reported 376 total crashes with injuries in Brookline between 2019 and 2023 — three of which were fatal and 18 of which resulted in serious injury.
David Kroop, president of the bike safety advocacy group Biking Brookline, said there should be protected bike lanes along Harvard Street.
The intersection at Washington and Station streets has 16 reported near misses, making it the spot with the most reports.
“It wouldn’t surprise me that that would be a high crash rate area,” Kroop said. “It also has somewhat limited visibility. It’s hard to see the cars that are coming up from Route 9.”
Most reports from the Station Street area cite a car at fault for the close call, but reports of a scooter and bike causing a near miss appear, too.
Sarah Wells, a shop manager at Literally Local, an art store right next to the busy intersection, said she sees “all of the above.”
“It’s like a jumble of things that happen,” she said. “The sidewalk, which is literally right outside of our shop, is always a little bit tenuous.”
Jefferson Parker, who lives nearby, said he often sees pedestrians crossing without the walk sign on, drivers taking dangerous left turns at stoplights, and traffic congestion at the intersections in Brookline Village.
Parker said he’d like to see a green left-turn arrow added to the traffic lights for southbound traffic on Washington turning onto Station. The amount of foot traffic, he says, makes the problem worse.
“There’s a day care over there. There’s a day care on the corner. There’s a day care over here. Another one there,” Parker said. “You got little kids walking. You got school kids unsupervised. You got a lot of traffic. It’s a serious choke point.”
Users can report near misses at https://arcg.is/0TDC9O0 . Submissions can be anonymous, and users will not receive responses to their reports. The town’s goal is to collect comprehensive data to improve traffic safety throughout the community.
“There is no expectation that any one particular comment or one particular experience would lead to fundamental change,” Guptill said. “A tool like this gets its validity from many people reporting the same thing.”