There are 118 intersections within the 5 boroughs the place a minimum of 5 folks have been killed or severely injured previously three years, in response to a report launched Tuesday — however there could also be a repair that would save lives.
Transportation Alternate options for Protected Streets launched a map utilizing Division of Transportation that reveals the Massive Apple’s deadliest avenue crossings, because the activist group pushed native politicians to go a brand new regulation that will ban automobiles from parking or standing inside 20 toes of crosswalks throughout town.
“The info reveals what we’ve recognized for years and been calling for, that intersections are the place we have to focus our consideration, that intersections are the place we have to prioritize protected avenue enhancements,” mentioned Elizabeth Adams, senior director of advocacy & organizing for the group.
Adams instructed reporters at a press convention exterior Metropolis Corridor workplaces in Manhattan that town ought to require “daylighting” in any respect intersections — which might give drivers and pedestrians higher views of potential hazardous conditions.
Daylighting is the follow of banning vehicles from parking too near an intersection’s crosswalks, which may block visibility for pedestrians and drivers, resulting in critical and generally lethal accidents.
“[With daylighting] whether or not you’re a driver, a pedestrian or a bicycle owner, you might have the sight strains you should see everybody who’s turning the nook, who’s coming across the bend,” Adams mentioned.
The group’s map confirmed that essentially the most harmful intersections in every borough had been:
- West a hundred and twentieth Road & Lenox Avenue in Manhattan
- Northern Boulevard & forty eighth Road in Queens
- Flatbush Avenue & Avenue H in Brooklyn
- Bruckner Boulevard & St. Ann’s Avenue within the Bronx
- Hunton Road & Richmond Highway in Staten Island
Every intersection has been the location of current tragedies and carnage.
At Manhattan’s deadliest intersection, a 3-year-old woman was struck and killed by an automobile as she crossed the road with an grownup and two different kids in July 2024.
And a 32-year-old girl was killed by a hit-and-run driver when crossing the Bronx’s deadliest intersection on Aug. 26.
Dilmania Lopez de Rodriguez was struck simply after midnight as she tried to cross Bruckner Boulevard on the Leggett Avenue intersection in Mott Haven, throughout the crosswalk, police mentioned.
The motive force fled leaving a witness to name the cops after discovering Rodriguez unresponsive.
The NYPD Freeway District’s Collision Investigation Squad continues to be investigating, in response to an NYPD spokesperson Tuesday.
At Queens’ worst intersection, a driver exiting a car parking zone plowed right into a 89-year-old girl and critically injured her again in 2022.
A spokesperson for the DOT mentioned Tuesday that every one of these intersections have already got daylighting.
However Adams mentioned it was unhealthy coverage to solely resolve on daylighting on a case-by-case foundation, usually after somebody has already died or been severely injured.
“It’s irresponsible for DOT to attend till one other New Yorker has misplaced their cherished one, one other New Yorker has had a devastating harm to say, ‘now we are going to have a look at this intersection,’” Adams mentioned.
Transit security advocates are as an alternative calling for the Metropolis Council to go a brand new regulation, Intro 1138, that will bar standing or parking a automobile inside 20 toes of any crosswalk citywide, with restricted exceptions for briefly selecting up or dropping off passengers.
The laws additionally orders DOT to put in bodily daylighting limitations, like planters or bike racks, at a minimal of 1,000 intersections a yr via 2030 and to conduct citywide outreach in regards to the new guidelines.
A spokesperson for Speaker Adrienne Adams — who will not be associated to the protection advocate — mentioned negotiations over the laws are nonetheless taking place. There is just one assembly left earlier than the present council session expires, on Dec. 18, the place the invoice might be heard with the method nonetheless requiring enter from the general public.
“The security of pedestrians and all avenue customers stays a prime precedence for Speaker Adams and the Council,” the spokesperson mentioned Tuesday. “Introduction 1138 continues to be actively labored on and negotiated as a part of the Council’s legislative course of, which incorporates consideration of public enter, forward of the Council’s closing Said Assembly.”
A DOT spokesperson mentioned the company helps a “focused” daylighting strategy.
“There isn’t a one-size-fits-all fast repair, however we are going to proceed to make use of each device out there – together with focused daylighting – to make our streets safer,” the spokesperson mentioned.
A research launched by DOT in January mentioned daylighting with no bodily barrier didn’t present a transparent security profit within the crash information DOT analyzed.
In some instances, the research confirmed, eradicating parked vehicles with out including different bodily limitations created a extra “open” feeling area that inspired quicker, wider turns by drivers. DOT really useful within the research to pair daylighting with different designs, equivalent to curb extensions, flip calming, protected bike lanes and pedestrian islands.
In the meantime the council invoice, sponsored by Queens Council member Julie Received, may nonetheless be heard subsequent yr if doubtless new speaker, Council member Julie Menin, opts to take it up. Menin is without doubt one of the invoice’s 26 co-sponsors.
Transit advocates, determined to forestall extra visitors deaths, mentioned Tuesday they received’t settle for any modifications to the invoice that don’t result in “actual change” for town’s susceptible pedestrians.
“I feel we received’t settle for something that doesn’t have actual security enhancements and actual modifications on our streets for New Yorkers,” Adams mentioned.
