Brooklyn's Dangerous Intersections
The tragic death of an eight-year-old boy on Saturday, who was struck by a car on Adams and Livingston Streets while riding his bike with his dad, is raising awareness about the dangers of downtown streets to bicyclists and pedestrians. The Brooklyn Eagle reports that “residents wonder if a solution for a gauntlet of deadly…

The tragic death of an eight-year-old boy on Saturday, who was struck by a car on Adams and Livingston Streets while riding his bike with his dad, is raising awareness about the dangers of downtown streets to bicyclists and pedestrians. The Brooklyn Eagle reports that “residents wonder if a solution for a gauntlet of deadly Downtown intersections will ever be found.” The non-profit Transportation Alternatives has compiled statistics for the area, showing that 39 people (28 pedestrians and 11 bicyclists) were hit by motor vehicles at that same spot from 1995 to 2005. “A half a block east on Livingston Street, eight pedestrians were struck during the same time period; one of them died. A block north, at the notorious Adams/Livingston/Fulton Street intersection, 32 people were struck and injured,” they write. “A few steps away, at Adams and Willoughby, 11 people were hit. Next to this, at Fulton and Willoughby, one more. At Fulton near Red Hook Lane, another one.” We have 150 miles of bicycle lanes in Brooklyn, with many more in progress, and the DOT instituted a six-month trial of a new downtown traffic plan beginning in June, hoping to ameliorate the recurring issue. Clearly, though, it’s not enough. One Brooklynite has been lobbying for a pedestrian overpass to curve over Adams Street, so pedestrians and bicyclists can avoid it altogether.
Another Victim of Downtown Traffic [Brooklyn Eagle]
First, everyone should obey the laws of the road. Drivers, bikers and pedestrians all have a responsibility.
Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way cars and trucks have a greater responsibility to get it right. Why? Because motor vehicles can crush you. End of discussion. I routinely see the most asinine maneuvers by NYC drivers. Calm the f**K down with the the driving. I’m afraid for myself in my own car with these idiots on the streets let alone on my bike.
The city needs to put up or shut up. Enforce the laws with some traffic cops. Build some real bike lanes that work for cyclists like in Copenhagen for instance. Start a real dialogue with the residents of this city to create awareness on these issues.
Take a look at the photos of the accident scene of the boy that was struck down. He clearly had the right of way when that truck took a right turn and killed him on the bike path.
http://www.wnbc.com/news/17412783/detail.html
Sincerest condolences to the family of Alexander Toulouse for their loss.
ell442 – have you ever been hit as a pedestrian by a bicyclist going at full speed….the consequences can be life threatening
I happened to be walking down BK Bridge Blvd (or Adam, or whatever) about 2 minutes after the collision. The ambulance was there, but cops were still trying to divert traffic from the accident. All we saw was a cop walking with the father (and we saw the smashed kid’s bike), so what we imagined is what actually happened. Horrible. Parents shouldn’t outlive their kids.
a bicyclist going through a red light is more like jaywalking than anything else. bikers should stop and wait at every red light to the same extent that a walker should (in other words, they shouldn’t).
a bicyclist should regard a red light like a stop sign, much as a pedestrian does. a stop sign should be treated like a yield sign.
goldie – why would that be insane? the problem isn’t just a “lack of responsibility.” it’s a lack of complying with traffic laws, and a failure of the NYPD to enforce them. you can bet that if the NYPD starting making violators feel the consequences, then they’d start complying.
and i agree that, on occasion, bikers or pedestrians do some silly things. but their numbers and the consequences of what they do by far pale in comparison to the numbers of and potential harm caused by drivers of gigantic hunks of steel barreling down flatbush. if you find it too “difficult” to pay attention to other street users, maybe you shouldn’t be behind the wheel?
Yes, yes, bikers are assholes, pedestrians don’t look where they’re going, etc, etc. But the reason people die is because cars don’t yield when they are supposed to. They run red lights and they park in bike lanes. DOT can design streets and intersections to be as people-friendly as possible — and frankly in this case they’ve done about as good a job as can be expected, with bike lanes the whole length of Adams and protected left-turn lanes with dedicated signals. But the cops don’t enforce any of the rules and so chaos prevails. The bike lanes are mostly unusable (when I ride toward the bridge, I usually do so in the express lanes because the bike lane is *always* blocked in front of the Marriott and the high school). Cars speed and jockey for position and don’t give way to pedestrians with a walk sign (particularly bad is the cross walk across Atlantic on the east side). Delivery trucks and placard holders park wherever they want with total immunity, creating dangerous blindspots and bottlenecks.
Frankly, the only thing that’s going to change any of this is a cultural shift in the NYPD. Oh, and congestion pricing probably would have helped.
class action suits against the city? your insane. the problem with everyone is a lack of responsibility. i see it on both sides. as polemicist said there are just foolish drivers, but i see so many either bold or stupid bikers who ride like warriors and expect that every driver is going to see them.
im a biker, but a driver too (daily from bklyn to jersey) and realize how difficult it is to pay attention to all the madness going on with traffic and other drivers, which means its all that much harder to see bikers suddenly darting in and out of traffic. and when its a dark, bright, or rainy day? forget it.
I walk through all these intersections multiple times each week and am amazed at some of the irresponsible pedestrians I see: stepping off the curb halfway into the lanes, ignoring the signals when the buses make their turns, playing chicken with speeding cars as they hopscotch from median strip to median strip. I certainly do see lots of bad driving but there’s some stupid foot traffic out there too. I’m all in favor of traffic cops to monitor the chaos but I’d ask them to ticket equally, drivers and pedestrians.
Every day that I cross Boerum at Livingston I feel like I just made it through another minefield. Yesterday two cars went through a red light, around a bus that was turnng and and narrowly missed pedestrians crossing Livingston with the light. That is typical.
Knowing how dangerous our streets are, I am constantly dumbfounded by people riding bikes with small children. Parents who would never let pre-teen walk alone have them on bikes going through city traffic! No one can protect a child who is on a bike on a street. You can’t hold their hand, pull them from danger. So why do these people do it? I see no good reason — you have a child so take the subway! And walk your child to a park to ride a bike!