Scene of Sunday’s East Village incident. (Photo: Daniel Maurer)
After a horrific horrific collision between a car and motorcyclist on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint Sunday that left the motorcyclist dead, Councilman Stephen Levin is calling for extensive safety improvements along the avenue. Another motorcylist was killed on Manhattan Avenue in August.
In a letter to the Department of Transportation, Levin said he had “major concerns about visibility and safety” on the thoroughfare, and asked for a full review of all of Manhattan Avenue’s intersections in Greenpoint. Levin previously introduced a resolution calling to reduce the speed limit across New York City to 20 MPH.
Mayor Bill de Blasio has also called for lowering the speed limit, as part of his Vision Zero plan, which seeks to eliminate traffic deaths by putting the limit at 25 MPH as well as installing more speed cameras and redesigning city streets.
Politicians, police officials and community boards are increasingly focused on reducing traffic accidents, which have become all too prevalent in the city. On Sunday, a woman was struck by a car in the middle of the intersection of First Avenue and East Second Street in the East Village, a neighborhood that saw three fatal traffic accidents in 2013. The woman is now in Bellevue Hospital and her condition is unknown, according to a fire department press official.
That incident came the day after two cabs collided on the Lower East Side, sending two to Bellevue.
The previous Sunday in the East Village, a cab crashed into an eye store on Second Avenue and East 14th Street, seriously injuring two people.
Manhattan’s Community Board 3, which encompasses the East Village, will hold a transportation and public safety meeting Tuesday evening. On the docket: a discussion of red light speed camera locations and a request for a safety speed hump on East Fourth Street between Avenues C and D, a block that includes two public schools and two residences for people with disabilities.
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