Streetsblog New York City

A DOT employee who crushed a Manhattan pedestrian with a dump truck and left the scene was not charged with a crime, was cleared of all traffic violations, and remains on the payroll.

It is unknown whether Harry Robinson is still driving vehicles for DOT, as the agency would not discuss details of his employment due to a pending civil case.

Roxana Sorina Buta. Photo via DNAinfo

Robinson, 64, was found not guilty in traffic court on May 9 of failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to exercise due care in the killing of Roxana Buta, according to DMV records.

At approximately 1:30 a.m. on May 24, 2012, as Buta crossed Broadway at 14th Street, in the crosswalk and with the light, Robinson made a right turn, ran her over and kept going.

An aspiring actress, Buta was on her way home to East Harlem from the restaurant where she worked. She was 21.

Last June it was reported that Buta’s killer had been identified. Though Robinson’s name was not released, the attorney hired by Buta’s family said police confirmed that the driver worked for DOT. Streetsblog contacted DOT last year to verify that the driver was an agency employee and, if so, whether the driver continued to operate DOT vehicles on the job, but received no response.

DOT told us this week that Robinson has worked as a highway repair worker since 2000. A spokesperson said that, due to pending litigation, the agency was prohibited from answering specific questions, including whether internal protocols or contract rules govern the disciplining or firing of DOT employees. Buta’s family has filed a civil suit claiming negligence on the part of Robinson, DOT, the Department of Design and Construction, and Mack Trucks.

A Department of Sanitation spokesperson told Streetsblog that agency is guided by internal policies in dealing with employees who are involved in serious crashes while on the job, but did not elaborate on what those policies are. We have also reached out to the Parks Department.

The Post reports that Robinson took the corner “at an unknown speed.” Also unknown: what steps, if any, NYPD and District Attorney Cy Vance took to measure Robinson’s speed, a factor that would have determined whether Buta lived or died. But police did say Buta was talking on a cell phone and had a blood alcohol level of .06, which is perfectly legal while walking.

Robinson was reportedly excused from prosecution because authorities could not prove he knew he had run Buta over. If this is true — Vance’s office does not discuss vehicular crimes cases, even when no charges are filed — it would mean leaving the scene was the only charge considered.

Buta was one of at least 37 pedestrians and cyclists killed by hit-and-run drivers in NYC since January 2012, according to crash data compiled by Streetsblog. Council Member Leroy Comrie this week announced legislation that would force NYPD to report on its handling of hit-and-run crash investigations.

City Council Member Jumaane Williams with (l-r) Transportation Alternatives general counsel Juan Martinez, Four-in-One Block Association president Hazel Martinez, and Small Business Men and Women of Avenue D president Terrence LaPierre. Photo: Keith Dawson/NYC Council

City Council Member Jumaane Williams yesterday called on the city to take action to improve traffic safety in East Flatbush, where hundreds of people have been injured and killed by reckless drivers in less than two years.

The area targeted by Williams centers on Kings Highway, and is bounded by Utica Avenue and Ralph Avenue to the west and east, respectively, Church Avenue to the north, and Glenwood Road to the south.

Williams was joined at a press conference by neighborhood leaders and Transportation Alternatives, which released a map of severe crashes within what Williams calls the “East Flatbush Motorist Danger Zone” [PDF]. Between August 2011 and February 2013, 69 pedestrians, 24 cyclists, and 385 motorists were injured in the target area. Two pedestrians and three motorists were killed.

Among the victims of reckless drivers in East Flatbush is Denim McLean, a toddler who was fatally struck by a curb-jumping motorist in March. Nine other bystanders, including Denim’s mother, were injured in that crash. The driver was not charged with a crime by NYPD or District Attorney Charles Hynes. Williams first announced his intent to pursue measures to tame traffic in his district in the aftermath of McLean’s death.

“My primary responsibility is the safety of my constituents, and the fact is that our streets are not meeting an acceptable standard of safety,” said Williams, in a press statement issued Wednesday. “There have been multiple fatalities and hundreds of injuries in the last couple years along Kings Highway, Utica Avenue and nearby thoroughfares. We need to double our efforts to reduce speeding and related violations that endanger motorists, pedestrians and cyclists.”

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This sign on Park Avenue in Clinton Hill is one of 11 displays DOT puts out citywide warning drivers to obey the speed limit. Photo: Stephen Miller

It’s that time of year: DOT is breaking out electronic signage at dangerous locations throughout the city, warning drivers to slow down and obey the speed limit. Speeding was the top cause of traffic deaths in New York City last year.

The first electronic sign installed this year went in at Atlantic Avenue and Clinton Street in Brooklyn Heights, where Martha Atwater was killed on the sidewalk by an curb-jumping driver.

A sign has also gone up on eastbound Park Avenue between Washington Avenue and Hall Street in Clinton Hill, where drivers have been clocked speeding as fast as 53 mph. The Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership has been working with community groups and elected officials on a pedestrian safety plan. One of the early results is that DOT will be installing more street lights on Park Avenue, according to News 12 Brooklyn. The plan also includes a number of physical infrastructure recommendations — no word on those yet, although DOT will be removing a few parking spots at intersections to improve visibility.

DOT will be installing 11 of these electronic signs and rotating them monthly throughout the city. It looks like this year, the signs have all been set to display the correct citywide speed limit, which is 30 mph.

A pedestrian struck by a motorist on April 1 in Bay Ridge died from her injuries. The crash occurred on a section of Fourth Avenue where DOT plans to install a pedestrian fence, and in a precinct where NYPD writes a speeding ticket once every five days.

At least two pedestrians were killed by drivers in April in the 68th Precinct, which wrote 63 speeding tickets in 2012. State Senator Marty Golden, whose district encompasses the precinct, is opposed to automated speed enforcement.

The victim, a 30-year-old female whose name was not published, was struck by the driver of a Honda sedan as she attempted to cross mid-block on Fourth near 86th Street, according to an April 2 story from the Brooklyn Daily. The impact broke one of her arms and caused severe head trauma.

The FDNY said they took the victim to Lutheran Medical Center where she later died from her injuries.

An NYPD spokeswoman said that the driver was uninjured and remained at the scene. An investigation is ongoing, but there is no evidence of a crime.

“It looks like it was just an accident,” the spokeswoman said.

A different version of the Brooklyn Daily story first appeared in the Brooklyn Paper, which reported that the victim was transported in cardiac arrest.

Coverage of the crash makes no mention of how fast the driver was going before the collision. A pedestrian’s chance of survival when hit by a vehicle decreases dramatically as motorist speed increases. Speeding was the leading cause of NYC traffic deaths in 2012, according to DOT.

DOT is planning a slate of changes to Fourth Avenue aimed at slowing down drivers and reducing traffic injuries and deaths. According to reports, one element of the proposal is a pedestrian fence, similar to those in Midtown Manhattan, to prevent “jaywalking.”

As usual, NYPD is AWOL on traffic calming. The 68th Precinct, where this crash occurred, and where an elderly woman was killed by a driver in a Fourth Avenue crosswalk on April 30, issued just 63 speeding tickets in 2012.

Both fatalities happened in Marty Golden’s state senate district. Golden has blocked the city from implementing a speed camera pilot program, though NYPD supports automated enforcement. Golden can be reached at 718-238-6044 and @SenMartyGolden.

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The end of May is an important time for livable streets in New York — and not just because of bike-share’s Memorial Day launch. On May 31, Slow Zone applications are due to DOT. Grassroots groups have been working to build support for their applications among neighbors, businesses, elected officials, and community boards — all with the goal of reducing dangerous speeding on local streets.

A Slow Zone installed last year in Corona. Neighborhoods across the city are preparing applications before the program's May 31 deadline. Photo: Stephen Miller

Speeding was the leading cause of traffic deaths in New York City last year, and the fatal crash rate increases four times faster than the corresponding increase in speed, according to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

Under the DOT program, Slow Zones are in primarily residential areas bounded by major barriers or streets, and cannot contain fire stations, hospitals or truck routes. In addition to the 20 mph speed limit, a Slow Zone area receives speed humps and new striping and signage to slow drivers.

A similar 20 mph zone program in London has prevented 27 traffic injuries or deaths each year, and Slow Zones have been shown to exert a spillover effect on driver speeds in adjacent neighborhoods there, as well.

Although there is no complete tally of applications underway right now, the program has remained popular since it began two years ago. “We’ve had dozens of folks tell us they’re interested in applying,” Transportation Alternatives spokesperson Michael Murphy told Streetsblog via e-mail. Last year more than 100 applications were submitted, with only 13 selected for implementation. The city’s first Slow Zone was installed in the Claremont section of the Bronx in 2011.

DOT has not said how many Slow Zones it is aiming to green-light this year, but communities are lining up to be selected. On Tuesday evening, Brooklyn Community Board 1 voted to support a Slow Zone application from the Greenpoint Renaissance Enterprise Corporation for streets near Cooper Park. Another group is proposing a Slow Zone for the area around McGolrick Park.

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The headline from today’s City Council transportation committee oversight hearing was Janette Sadik-Khan’s announcement that the official launch date for Citi Bike is Memorial Day. Meanwhile, for Transportation Committee Chair James Vacca, it was another occasion to flail at bikes and defend cheap parking under the guise of holding a budget hearing.

Council Members Vacca and Recchia want to make sure that cyclists are a revenue source for the city — and that the parking status quo is maintained. Photos: NYC Council

Sadik-Khan kicked off the hearing with prepared testimony on the agency’s $732.9 million 2014 executive budget, including everything from public plazas and Select Bus Service upgrades to bridge repair and street lights.

But the bulk of council members’ questions revolved around bikes. The first came from an incredulous Vacca, who challenged Sadik-Khan’s statement that more than 70 percent of New Yorkers support bike-share. ”How do you know that?” he asked, before she pointed him to polling from Quinnipiac University.

After asking about the $9.4 million budgeted for bicycle network expansion — 80 percent of which is covered by federal funds — and questioning whether a safety plan for the Grand Concourse should include bike lanes (Sadik-Khan noted that the street already has them), Vacca came to the heart of his questioning: How can the city get more revenue from bike riders?

“I didn’t see any projections in your budget based on revenue from the commercial cycling program,” Vacca said, referencing a package of laws the City Council passed last year that create new mandates for delivery cyclists and their employers. But it’s not just food delivery cyclists that Vacca sees as a revenue source. “When will we see revenue into the city’s coffers from bike-share?” he asked.

“[The Office of Management and Budget] does not include funding for new programs,” Sadik-Khan said. “They need to have a year to understand what the budget impact is going to be.” She added that any bike-share profits will be split evenly between the city and system operator Alta.

Finance committee chair Domenic Recchia, meanwhile, said he’s concerned about reduced parking revenue as a result of Citi Bike stations being installed on the street. ”Less than one percent of parking spots were removed,” Sadik-Khan said, adding that not all on-street bike-share stations are in formerly metered spaces. ”The contract provides that the operator has to make up the lost revenue to the city.”

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A protected bike lane on the Pulaski Bridge — calming traffic heading to McGuinness Boulevard and providing much more breathing room than the bridge’s narrow bike/ped path alone — has cleared a significant planning hurdle. In a letter to Assembly Member Joe Lentol [PDF], DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said that the proposal meets traffic analysis requirements, and that an engineering study and recommendations will be made by the end of the year:

DOT says an engineering study is underway for a protected bike lane on the Pulaski Bridge, and the agency will make recommendations by the end of the year. Photo: *Bitch Cakes*/Flickr

Since December, we have analyzed traffic data and we are confident that one Brooklyn-bound lane can be removed from the Pulaski Bridge without an adverse effect on traffic flow… However, there are some engineering questions remaining about how to properly design and install such a bicycle path on the bridge. To resolve these questions, we are initiating an engineering study with a structural engineering consultant.

The most likely engineering concerns are related to the bridge’s wide joint gaps, which could ensnare narrow bike tires, and how to maintain an adequate physical barrier between bicycles and motor vehicles on the drawbridge section of the span. DOT expects to wrap up the study and recommendations later this year, according to Sadik-Khan’s letter.

While this update puts the study schedule behind the March deadline that Lentol had cited at the beginning of the year, it’s a good sign of progress.

In the meantime, advocates continue to build support for the bike lane. The Transportation Alternatives Queens volunteer committee, which has a petition supporting the lane with 300 signatures, will be gathering more signatures on the Queens side of the bridge path on Saturday, May 11, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m.

The bridge path would complement a separate proposal to bring bike lanes to 11th Street in Long Island City, connecting north to Queens Plaza and the Queensboro Bridge. ”DOT and CB 2 have already agreed to this,” TA volunteer Steve Scofield told Streetsblog via e-mail. “We’re expecting their exact proposal and an implementation date in a matter of weeks.”

Photo: Clarence Eckerson Jr.

Clarence snapped these shots of a new Slow Zone in East Elmhurst/Jackson Heights, where DOT is putting in 20 mph signage and street markings, including a wide striped median on 30th Avenue that reduces the number of lanes pedestrians must cross.

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DOT Street Safety Managers at First Avenue and 11th Street. Photo: Stephen Miller

Wondering what’s up with the people holding stop signs in the bike lane today? NYC DOT’s press office just sent out this explanation:

New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan today announced that DOT Street Safety Managers (SSM) are assigned to key bike and pedestrian corridors and bridge paths in Manhattan to help enhance safety among pedestrians, cyclists and motorists, further enhancing street safety as bike ridership grows, as DOT starts enforcement of commercial cycling laws and in advance of the 6,000-bike launch of the Citi Bike system. The SSMs will monitor locations with dense pedestrian and cyclist activity to reinforce existing traffic rules, advising bike riders to ride in the direction of traffic, yield to pedestrians and stop at traffic signals; instructing pedestrians to await traffic signals on the curb and not stand in bike paths; and discouraging cars from parking illegally in bike lanes. Shifts of four SSMs will be assigned to different locations in Manhattan weekdays during the morning and afternoon rush hours from April through October.

“Our streets have never been safer and we’re educating everyone on how to use them safely, and enforcing against those who don’t,” said Commissioner Sadik-Khan. “With more people out in the warm weather we’re committed to doing even more to get out the message that safety is the rule of the road.”

In 2011, after the tabloids ran some over-the-top pieces about conflicts on bike/ped paths over the East River, DOT contracted with Sam Schwartz Engineering to staff the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge with “pedestrian safety managers” tasked with keeping everyone in their respective lanes. The agency says this year it is saving some money by handing the expanded role of “street safety manager” to current agency employees during the peak cycling season.

Photo: DOT

Since 2009, Friends of the Williamsbridge Oval and Bronx Community Board 7 have been asking DOT to improve pedestrian safety and access to the Norwood neighborhood’s central public space. Most intersections surrounding the park don’t have crosswalks, and sections of the road surrounding the park are also missing sidewalks. Now, after years of requests from neighbors, DOT has proposed changes that would make it safer to get to the park.

Trying to get to the park? There are no sidewalks or crosswalks now, but that's slated to change. Image: DOT

Williamsbridge Oval, also known as Reservoir Oval, had 15 pedestrian injuries and 22 motor vehicle occupant injuries from 2006 to 2012, according to DOT. Over the same period, there were no bicyclist injuries, while four of the motor vehicle occupant injuries were serious.

DOT’s proposal [PDF], presented at a meeting co-hosted by CB 7 last Wednesday, would reduce the speed limit on the oval from 30 mph to 20 mph and add signage alerting drivers to speed humps and curves in the road. It would also add painted curb extensions and crosswalks at the intersections of Holt Place, Reservoir Place, and at a park entrance near the tennis courts between Wayne Avenue and Bainbridge Avenue.

While painted curb extensions are now a common tool DOT uses across New York,  unlike its counterparts in other cities, the agency doesn’t normally suggest striping crosswalks where there are no traffic signals or stop signs.

“It’s a big step in the right direction,” said Jay Shuffield, a member of both CB 7 and Friends of the Williamsbridge Oval. Shuffield thanked DOT’s pedestrian projects group for the change in tone, since advocates felt they were stonewalled by the agency’s Bronx borough office. ”They suddenly dropped their resistance to common-sense solutions here,” he said.

The proposal also adjusts the oval’s two high-traffic intersections with Bainbridge Avenue. At the avenue’s intersection with West 208th Street, the proposal adds a painted pedestrian island, and at Van Cortlandt Avenue East, it shifts parking to create a painted sidewalk that connects to a park entrance.

Nine additional parking spaces would be added on Reservoir Place as it approaches the oval to calm traffic coming from East Gun Hill Road, and parking spaces are being shifted to accommodate the painted curb extension on the oval at Holt Place.

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