Chicago Traffic Deaths On The Vision Zero List, 2019 To 2026

Chicago’s official Vision Zero list counts 101 people killed in traffic crashes in 2025, the fewest of any year from 2019 through 2025 and 45.7 percent below the 186 of 2021. The list runs through July 29, 2026, and by that date this year it held 62 deaths — five more than 2025 had at the same point, and fewer than every year from 2019 through 2024.

Traffic Crashes — Vision Zero Chicago Traffic Fatalities (gzaz-isa6), 1,048 deaths dated from January 3, 2019, the list’s earliest record, through July 29, 2026, retrieved September 16, 2026; the list was last updated September 2, 2026 · compiled by the Chicago Department of Transportation from monthly reviews of police fatal-crash information, and edited again once the state publishes each year’s official data, so 2025 and 2026 remain provisional · every row is a person who died: no location, time, identifier or account of any crash is published here · community areas are given for all years combined · counts are not rates · no cause is assigned to any change

From a 2021 peak to a 2025 low, and this year so far

Every year the list covers. The last column counts each year’s deaths dated through July 29, the list’s latest date; the list’s earliest record is January 3, 2019, so no 2019 death on it is dated January 1 or 2.
Year	Deaths on the list	Dated through July 29
2019	120	70
2020	153	81
2021	186	94
2022	160	85
2023	136	75
2024	130	77
2025	101	57
2026	62 (through July 29)	62

The count rose from 120 in 2019 to 153 in 2020 and 186 in 2021, then fell in every year after: 160, 136, 130 and 101. Measured over the same January-to-July stretch, 2026’s 62 sits above 2025’s 57 and below every earlier year, which ran from 70 in 2019 to 94 in 2021. The list records when and how many; it does not record why, and a change from one year to the next here is timing, not evidence of what caused it. The two most recent years can also still move: the list’s description says it is edited once the state publishes each year’s official crash data.

Who was killed

Every death on the list by the list’s own victim classification; 2026 runs through July 29.
Road user, as the list classifies them	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	All years
Pedestrian	50	45	61	52	46	45	37	18	354
Driver	35	61	58	57	47	40	35	15	348
Passenger	21	27	38	28	22	30	20	14	200
Motorcyclist	9	12	18	13	11	11	7	9	90
Cyclist	5	8	11	10	7	4	2	4	51
Scooter	0	0	0	0	3	0	0	2	5

People on foot are the largest group on the list: 354 of the 1,048, or 33.8 percent, just ahead of 348 drivers, with 200 passengers, 90 motorcyclists and 51 cyclists. Pedestrian deaths peaked at 61 in 2021 and were 37 in 2025; driver deaths peaked at 61 in 2020 and were 35 in 2025. The list also carries five deaths classified as “SCOOTER,” although the note on its victim column names only cyclist, driver, motorcyclist, passenger and pedestrian.

Every community area, and where the count is highest

The 12 community areas with the most deaths on the list, placed by this page using the city’s community-area boundaries.
Community area	Deaths, 2019 to July 29, 2026	Of them, pedestrians
Austin	48	20
Near West Side	35	13
West Garfield Park	31	15
Ashburn	30	5
North Lawndale	29	10
East Garfield Park	29	8
Humboldt Park	28	12
Auburn Gresham	26	8
Roseland	25	6
Chatham	24	15
West Englewood	24	13
Belmont Cragin	23	11

Every one of Chicago’s 77 community areas has at least one death on the list since 2019. Austin has the most, 48, followed by the Near West Side with 35 and West Garfield Park with 31, and Austin also has the most pedestrian deaths, 20. The deaths are widely spread rather than concentrated — the ten highest counts together hold 29.2 percent of the 1,044 deaths placed in a community area. These are counts, not rates: the list carries no population, traffic volume or miles of street, so a larger count can reflect a larger or busier place as much as a more dangerous one.

Two city files, two counts

This desk read the city’s main traffic crash file for its crash-hours analysis on July 19; its last crash came in the early hours of July 18, 2026, and it recorded 989 people killed from January 1, 2019 to that point. Over exactly the same stretch — the list’s crash-date column records a time of day as well, which this page reads to make the cut but does not publish — the Vision Zero list counts 1,041 deaths, 52 more. The list’s own description anticipates the gap: CDOT applies a standardized definition, counts a death within 30 days of a crash, excludes deaths ruled suicides, intentional homicides or medical events and crashes on expressways or outside city jurisdiction, and says it may hold records that do not appear as fatalities in the other files. The list is the city’s Vision Zero count; the crash file is the police crash record.

What the list confirms, and what it cannot tell you

Confirmed, as compiled: each death’s date, the victim’s road-user classification and coordinates for the crash. The columns read here do not show: why any count changed; the speed, lighting, road design or behavior involved in any crash, which this page did not read; or anyone’s identity. The list’s person identifiers are also incomplete — 25 rows carry none, and four identifiers are attached to nine rows — so this page counts rows, which is how the list counts deaths, and does not use the identifiers to remove any.

Where the record lives

The Vision Zero fatality list and the community-area boundaries sit on the city’s data portal. The list was last updated September 2, 2026, and every figure here was computed from it as retrieved on September 16, 2026.

The bottom line

By the city’s own Vision Zero count, 1,048 people died in Chicago traffic crashes between January 2019 and late July 2026. The yearly toll peaked at 186 in 2021 and fell to 101 in 2025; this year’s count by July 29 is five above last year’s at the same date and below every year before it. Pedestrians are a third of the dead, and no community area is absent from the list.

Two more questions the list can answer

How many cyclists died in 2025? Two, the fewest of any year from 2019 through 2025, against 11 in 2021. And how many motorcyclists have died so far in 2026? Nine by July 29, more than in all of 2025, which ended with seven.

Source: the city’s Traffic Crashes — Vision Zero Chicago Traffic Fatalities list (gzaz-isa6): 1,048 rows, January 3, 2019 through July 29, 2026, retrieved September 16, 2026 and read whole.
Columns read: crash date and time, victim classification, coordinates and the person identifier. The estimated address and the written account of each crash were never selected; identifiers, times and coordinates are not published.
Same-stretch comparison: each year’s deaths dated on or before July 29, the list’s latest date. The earliest record on the list is January 3, 2019; whether the list would include a death on January 1 or 2 of that year, its description does not say.
Community areas: each death’s coordinates placed inside the city’s community-area boundaries by point-in-polygon; 1,044 fall in one area and 4 in none. Areas are reported for all years combined.
The crash-file figure: 989 people killed from January 1, 2019 through the last crash in this desk’s July 19 read of the city’s main crash file, early on July 18, 2026, compared with the list cut at the same timestamp.
Not here: no individual’s details, no rate, no cause for any change, and no advice.

Computed by KCM Desk from the city’s Vision Zero traffic fatality list and community-area boundaries, retrieved September 16, 2026. Human-guided and edited — about this desk. If you spot an error, corrections come first.