Bronx politicians on Friday demanded that the city improve street safety in Riverdale, where a hit-and-run driver injured a 9-year-old girl — but the lawmakers don't support some proven measures that remove space from automobiles.
Instead, Council Member Eric Dinowitz and his father Assembly Member Jeffrey Dinowitz (yes relation) want the Department of Transportation to install speed bumps and four-way stop signs at intersections in the section of the neighborhood just below the city line between Riverdale Avenue and Broadway.
"This isn’t a unique experience in this neighborhood," said the younger Dinowitz at a press conference at the crash location. "Every day when residents walk to and from school, to and from school, to and from the bus stop, when they walk home, they live with fear, fear that they are gonna get hit by a car."
The young girl suffered her injuries on Tuesday when two drivers collided at W. 261st Street and Huxley Avenue. One of the drivers fled, NYPD said.
The Dinowitzes sent the request to DOT before the crash even occurred — in response to a petition for the upgrades signed by local residents. DOT denied the ask, arguing that the area had low car volumes and not enough crashes for such interventions, the father-son duo said.
But the younger Dinowitz has criticized DOT’s street safety efforts in the past, including after the city removed car lanes from Riverdale Avenue, a notorious speedway, in 2022. At the time, he insisted he didn't oppose the redesign, but that DOT was "undemocratic" and guilty of "constant misrepresentation of facts and the lack of responsiveness to the community."
On Friday, the Council member balked at slimming down these local streets, despite the intersection being wide enough for two-way traffic on each cross-street.
"If you walked down any of these streets, they are far too narrow to narrow any more," he said in response to a question by Streetsblog. "If you have a FedEx delivery and a car, narrowing it would certainly lead to more crashes, that I can tell you."
In fact, road diets have shown to reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured by around 30 percent, according to DOT. Wider roads, meanwhile, encourage speeding. The current 25 miles per hour feels excessive on neighborhood side streets.
Another low-cost move to improve sight lines at intersections, especially for smaller children, is the banning of car storage up to corners, also known as daylighting. But Dinowitz declined to endorse a Council bill to roll out that policy citywide.
"Daylighting has to be done corner by corner, it cannot be universal, it cannot be everywhere, because different neighborhoods and different corners, intersections have different needs," said the legislator, who represents a district where 43 percent of households do not have access to a car, according to the census. "This community is making their needs clear: speed humps and four-way stop signs."
Banning parking within 20 feet of intersections is already state law, but the city exempts itself in favor of more parking. Adopting the measure citywide would follow the success of cities like Hoboken, where traffic engineers have aggressively implemented the change. The Square Mile City across the Hudson has not recorded a traffic death since 2017.
DOT cast doubt on the effectiveness of universal daylighting in a January report — just as the Council bill gained steam — but advocates charged the agency with using shaky stats and unsound methods.
Dinowitz's Council District 11 has had more than 9,000 reported crashes over the past five years, injuring 4,389 people — more than two a day — and killing 13 pedestrians, 11 people in cars, and one cyclist. That's more than the far denser neighboring Council District 14, which has had 7,400 reported crashes with fewer than 4,000 injuries and 17 fatalities.
There are almost no protected bike lanes in the area, which becomes clear to cyclists going to and from the recently opened cycling path on the Henry Hudson Bridge, which deposits riders at a highway off-ramp and with no safe routes on the Bronx side.
Protected bike lanes reduce all traffic deaths and serious injuries by 18 percent, and 29 percent among pedestrians, according to DOT.
Residents were fed up with the status quo, with one local mom saying a driver struck her husband within a week after they moved to the area.
"It’s very concerning that I can’t let my kids walk around the neighborhood alone, they’re independence is completely being stifled because of this issue," said Shanit Halperin, who lives just a few blocks away from the site of the recent crash.
DOT officials are reviewing the crash and "potential upgrades" for the intersection, said spokesperson Anna Correa.
