Speedway-like Third Avenue has claimed another victim — the second this month — as a pedestrian was fatally struck by a hit-and-run driver on Monday in Sunset Park.
According to cops, Fernando Trejo, 27, was found lying in the pavement with severe trauma to the body near the intersection of 52nd Street and Third Avenue at around 12:30 a.m. EMS took him to nearby NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, where he died on Tuesday. Cops gave no description of the vehicle that struck and killed Trejo before it fled.
"The investigation remains ongoing," police said.
Trejo lived just a block away from where he was hit.
The death comes just 17 days after cyclist Hugo Garcia was killed further north on Third Avenue on New Year's Day after he was doored by a taxi passenger and then run over by another driver. At the time, Transportation Alternatives' co-interim director Ellen McDermott called for Third Avenue to be redesigned.
“[It] has not been redesigned to safely accommodate all users regardless of their mode of transport," she said. "There is no dedicated right of way for people on bikes — just three wide lanes for moving cars and trucks, and one lane for storing them.”
There have been scores of crashes — and three fatalities — along the strip in Sunset Park since January, 2017. Drivers frequently exceed the speed limit, thanks to a roadway that is wide and does not feature design elements — beyond generously timed traffic signals — to suggest it is anything but a highway.
