Safe streets advocates said on Thursday that Siobhan Lynch, a 30-year-old woman who was struck and killed by a city Sanitation Department (DSNY) garbage truck driver on Oct. 28, could still be alive today if there had been safety features installed at the southern Brooklyn intersection where she was hit.<\/p>\n
Transportation Alternatives alleged in an Oct. 29 news release that the city Department of Transportation (DOT) could have prevented the Wednesday crash by opting to install pedestrian-protective enhancements to the Bath Beach intersection of Bay Parkway and Cropsey Avenue as part of its current redesign of the two roads<\/a>.<\/p>\n The group highlighted that between 2020 and 2024 the intersection was the second most dangerous on Bay Parkway, which DOT has identified as a \u201cPriority Corridor\u201d under its Vision Zero plan to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries. The DOT recorded 41 injuries at the crossing during that time.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that the streets and intersections with the most extensive crash histories are our most dangerous, and the history of Cropsey Avenue and Bay Parkway is a mile-long,\u201d said Ben Furnas, Transportation Alternatives\u2019 executive director.<\/p>\n \u201cOur street redesigns should be driven by crash data, but on Bay Parkway, we redesigned a street and left one of its most dangerous intersections unsafe,\u201d he added. \u201cNow, a New Yorker has lost their life. This tragedy was predictable, preventable, and we owe it to every New Yorker to make sure that it never happens again.\u201d<\/p>\n Transportation Alternatives spokesperson Michelle Deme said the group concluded DOT was not adding safety features to the intersection because it did not indicate that it would in its initial plan for the project released in 2024<\/a>. The redesign, construction of which began earlier this month,<\/a> will add pedestrian safety elements such as median islands, painted median extension, and painted curb extensions to both roads.<\/p>\n DOT pushes back on safe street advocates\u2019 criticism<\/p>\n DOT spokesperson Vincent Barone, however, disputed the group\u2019s assertion, noting that the agency is in fact adding a painted curb extension to the intersection\u2019s northeast corner. The feature is designed to shorten the distances pedestrians have to cross, while also slowing vehicle speeds.<\/p>\n