A driver struck and killed two children, ages 1 and 4, on Ninth Street at Fifth Avenue in Park Slope this afternoon, according to police. At least one other person was injured in the crash. The driver is currently in NYPD custody at the scene of the collision.
Journalist Leah Finnegan tweeted photos from the scene showing a stroller under the rear wheels of a white Volvo sedan.
Police confirmed the deaths to Streetsblog. The third victim was a pregnant woman, according to the office of Borough President Eric Adams. She was rushed to the hospital, and her condition is unknown.
NYPD had no other information about the circumstances of the crash, and the identities of the victims and the driver have not been released.
Cutting east-west across Park Slope, Ninth Street functions as a neighborhood main street. Its mix of retail, with multiple subway and bus connections, makes it a crowded walking street.
A 2007 redesign added buffered, un-protected bike lanes, but the design is clearly inadequate. The street is wide and vulnerable to speeding, especially on the westbound side, where drivers travel downhill. The bike lane, meanwhile, is frequently blocked by double-parked vehicles, including Mayor de Blasio's SUV caravan to the Park Slope YMCA.
We’re trying to get details about the crash on 9th Street. @bradlander is on the scene. pic.twitter.com/IlS2v8wEf6
— Park Slope Neighbors (@psneighbors) March 5, 2018
In late February 2016, a hit-and-run driver struck and killed 41-year-old Bahtiyor Khamdamov at the same intersection as today's crash.
Later that year, a driver critically injured a cyclist at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Ninth Street.
The street is wide enough for curbside protected bike lanes on each side of the street, which would prevent speeding by narrowing the right-of-way for motor vehicles. But DOT has said that it won't convert the buffered bike lanes to protected bike lanes because Ninth Street needs center turn pockets.
Tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m., residents and advocates plan to confront Mayor de Blasio at the Park Slope YMCA, which is mere feet away from the site of today's crash, about how he plans to respond to the terrible loss of life on Ninth Street.
We'll update this story as we get more information about the collision.
Correction: The post originally stated the victims were 3 and 5 years old, based on information from NYPD. Subsequent reports elsewhere give their ages as 1 and 4.
