Eyes on the Street

Another day, another motorist barreling onto a New York City sidewalk. Reader Liz Patek sends this shot of the crash aftermath at Columbus and 72nd Street yesterday evening, where a van driver, apparently heading east, jumped the curb and crashed into a light pole. The tally on CrashStat reveals that 20 pedestrians and eight cyclists were injured in traffic crashes at this intersection between 1995 and 2005.

Pop-up indeed!

Here's another story of how Police Commissioner Ray Kelly allows his scarce traffic safety resources to be spent. Reader Marc Norman took this picture after an encounter at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge bike-ped path this morning. He writes:

Clarence sends along a few more shots from the beginning of construction season. These come from Queens Plaza, where the two-way bike approach to the Queensboro Bridge is extending eastward.

Construction is underway at the intersection of 23rd Street and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, where DOT is building new pedestrian refuge islands and a sidewalk extension to provide some extra space around a busy subway station. The intersection, currently in the 99th percentile for severity-weighted traffic injuries in the city, will also have its signals adjusted to give pedestrians more conflict-free time to cross the street. The new plaza extends across two of Seventh Avenue's six lanes on the southern side of the intersection.

Thought you might enjoy this street scene from Garfield Place yesterday afternoon, sent by reader Jeff Prant. The Park Slope St. Patrick's Day Parade had passed through earlier in the day, leaving in its wake some neighborly conversation. I'm guessing Donald Appleyard would have liked this picture.

Courtesy of reader Joanna Oltman Smith, this was the scene in Park Slope this morning, hours after a collision between a speeding driver and NYPD officers on Fifth Avenue between Sixth and Seventh Streets. Details from the Brooklyn Paper:

In Washington for the National Bike Summit, Clarence Eckerson snapped a shot of this ad for the capital's NBC affiliate and its reporter Joe Krebs (described in his bio as "an avid swimmer and cyclist").

Some utility work apparently knocked out the traffic controls at the intersection of Lafayette and Broome this afternoon. No traffic signals, no pedestrian signals, no traffic agent telling people what to do. I had to stop and watch for a few minutes.