City plans to fix street where driver fatally struck two children
Following the tragic death of two Brooklyn tots last week,...
The city plans to add a protected bike lane and narrow the driving lanes along Ninth Avenue in Brooklyn where a seizure-prone driver fatality struck two children in March, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Wednesday.
The bike lane will move to the other side of parked cars from traffic between Prospect Park West and Third Avenue. The city will also narrow the traffic lane along that same stretch, officials said.
“For the last few months, DOT’s planners, designers and engineers have been hard at work coming up with a safe and smart redesign of 9th Street,” said Polly Trottenberg, commissioner of the city’s transportation department.
The city will present the proposed street redesign at a Community Board 6’s June meeting.
De Blasio also once again begged the state to let the city install more speed cameras in more school zones.
“We are doing our part with a redesign of 9th Street to reduce speeding and make it safer. Now we need Albany to its part. We need school zone speed camera legislation extended and expanded immediately to prevent future tragedies on our streets. Speed cameras save lives,” said de Blasio.
Current state laws only allow 140 speed cameras in school zones, and those can only be in operation during school hours. Many city and state lawmakers have called for the number of cameras to be raised to 290.