Lobbyists Decide Street Safety in Brooklyn, NY
Yoshi Balaban, a four-year-old child was killed yesterday in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.
Most alarming is that the accident could have been prevented if politicians responded with solutions to previous traffic issues in that area.
This happened at 2025 – 67th Street. There are two schools there – the yeshiva and a public elementary school.
Dave Colon from StreetsBlog wrote: “Between 2018 and 2020, there were 39 crashes on the blocks surrounding the schools, that injured six pedestrians, two cyclists and two motorists. (Source)
The three elected officials for that area are: Senator Andrew Gounardes, Assemblyman Peter Abbate and Councilman Mark Treyger. Safety obviously isn’t their concern as all have been in office for years! They had over 30 chances to DO SOMETHING before yesterdays incident.
NYC Crashmapper clearly shows where the problem areas are. Why didn’t Gounardes, Abbate and Treyger take some action? (See Crashmapper)
When Gounardes first ran for office, Brad Lander and he were pushing the red light camera program. Back then, we didn’t know that lobbyists were pushing these ticket cameras. We thought the politicians were sincere on this issue.
Since 2016, NYC Council was lobbied by American Traffic Solutions (now called Verra Mobility), which received the $176 million contract from NYC – see here. Andrew Gounardes never mentioned that lobbyists were involved! (Lobbyist Database)
When Gounardes overrode Community Board 10 with a letter asking for unprotected bike lanes in Bay Ridge, I knew Gounardes wasn’t interested in safety (See here). Anyone who knows the area, knows people here don’t drive so well (visitors – not residents) and protected bike lanes are needed for children to ride safely on the street. In 2019, most of the fatal bike accidents happened in Brooklyn. (Source)
“In 2019, we saw both Brooklyn and Queens had the most accidents. “(Source)
“Brooklyn traffic fatalities increased by 24% and the number of persons killed in motor vehicle crashes went from 62 in 2018 to 77 in 2019, making Brooklyn the borough with the most casualties.” (Source)
Living in South Brooklyn, we know the streets have become less safe. At least 243 people died in traffic crashes in New York City in 2020 (From here)
Whose deciding the safety of our streets? The companies who have money to lobby elected leaders.
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Hugs,
marlene
Topics: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
January 6th, 2021 at 10:13 am
The child was run over by the van driver who dropped him off and apparently did not insure that he and his sibling were safely away before driving off. The school should have a procedure to do this also. This is not a traffic control accident.
January 6th, 2021 at 3:46 pm
It’s two schools and there is an obvious problem here so politicians should have stepped in after they saw 10 or maybe 20 accidents happen in that area. A public school can’t make rules for the private school and vice versa. Politicians need to stop the press releases and make a plan to make sure this doesn’t happen to another child – close the street to cars if needed.