Bayside

Driver Kills 72-Year-Old Pedestrian in Bayside, Queens

Another senior citizen walking the streets of New York has been killed in traffic. This morning at 6:00 a.m., a driver heading eastbound on Northern Boulevard struck a 72-year-old man crossing at the intersection of 212th Street, according to NYPD. The victim was taken to New York Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

By Noah Kazis

11:26 AM EDT on September 29, 2010

A pedestrian was killed at the intersection of Northern Boulevard and 212th Street this morning. The intersection lacks any safe way for pedestrians to cross the street. Image: Google Street View.

The driver stayed at the scene and was not intoxicated, said the police. Hence, as usual, no summonses were issued. But NYPD’s public information office could not say yet whether the pedestrian was crossing 212th Street, which has a crosswalk, or Northern Boulevard, which does not.

Northern Boulevard is a heavily trafficked feeder onto the un-tolled Queensboro Bridge and has long been a particularly dangerous street for pedestrians. In fact, back during his first campaign for mayor, Michael Bloomberg singled it out as in need of tougher speeding enforcement.

Noah Kazis

Noah joined Streetsblog as a New York City reporter at the start of 2010. When he was a kid, he collected subway paraphernalia in a Vignelli-map shoebox. Before coming to Streetsblog, he blogged at TheCityFix DC and worked as a field organizer for the Obama campaign in Toledo, Ohio. Noah graduated from Yale University, where he wrote his senior thesis on the class politics of transportation reform in New York City. He lives in Morningside Heights.