Dangerous Hell's Kitchen Streets Need Safety Fixes, Bottcher Says

HELL'S KITCHEN, NY — A trio of avenues on Manhattan's West Side that have seen hundreds of crashes in recent years should be redesigned to prevent future tragedies, the neighborhood's newest lawmaker said Wednesday.

City Councilmember Erik Bottcher made the request in a news conference on the corner of 10th Avenue and West 44th Street, calling for safety improvements on 10th and 11th avenues in Hell's Kitchen and Chelsea, as well as lower Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village.

Bottcher's district, he noted, has seen the city's most pedestrian deaths and injuries within the past two years: nine fatalities and 428 injuries since 2020, according to data from Crash Mapper.

Victims of the recent crashes include 73-year-old librarian Kathie Coblentz, who was struck by a driver near Columbus Circle last April, and a 58-year-old man hit by a truck driver near Port Authority Bus Terminal in October.

"We essentially have four-lane highways running through the heart of our community," Bottcher said in a statement. "These stretches have no infrastructure in place to protect pedestrians, cyclists, and public transit riders."

Bottcher called on the Department of Transportation to install pedestrian islands, expanded sidewalks and protected bike lanes on the three avenues. There is nearby precedent, he noted: Ninth Avenue already has a protected bike lane, as do portions of 10th and 11th avenues, while sidewalks were recently widened along a busy stretch of Eighth Avenue.

Asked about Bottcher's requests, a DOT spokesperson said that "the safety of our streets will remain DOT’s priority.

"We appreciate Council Member Bottcher’s advocacy, and we look forward to working alongside all Council members and advocates to ensure our streets are safer for all New Yorkers," spokesperson Tomas Garita said.

Bottcher's demands were echoed by local officials like U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler and State Sen. Brad Hoylman, as well as advocates like Debbie Kahn, a member of Families for Safe Streets whose son, Seth, was killed crossing Ninth Avenue in Hell's Kitchen in 2009.

Their calls come after a deadly year for pedestrians and cyclists in the city: 2021 saw New York's highest number of traffic fatalities in nearly a decade, despite then-mayor Bill de Blasio's much-publicized "Vision Zero" campaign. Meanwhile, a dozen new Yorkers have already been killed in crashes so far in 2022.

"For too long, pedestrians have been treated as secondary to vehicles, wedged between garbage and cars for decades, as they struggle to safely navigate from home to the subway or the theater," said Community Board 4 chair Jeffrey LeFrancois, noting that his board has long pushed for pedestrian safety fixes in the area.

Acknowledging the "traffic violence crisis," Mayor Eric Adams pledged this month to "reimagine" 1,000 intersections across the city, implementing safety fixes like raised crosswalks, turn signals and "head starts" that allow pedestrians to cross before drivers can turn.

Meanwhile, "Sammy's Law" — a bill pushed by Hoylman that would give New York City the ability to set its speed limits below 25 miles per hour — advanced through a state senate committee on Tuesday.

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