By Patrick Hedlund
DNAinfo News Editor
LOWER EAST SIDE — Traveling through the Lower East Side can be deadly for cyclists and pedestrians, and a transit advocacy group has mapped out just how dangerous it has been.
Earlier this month, for example, a man was struck and killed by a car while walking through the intersection of Delancey and Essex streets. A female cyclist died in January when a school bus ran her over at Delancey and Ludlow streets, just a block away.
A recent report by Transportation Alternatives showed that the intersection of Delancey and Essex streets saw 119 such crashes between 1998 and 2008, while 76 crashes occurred just three blocks north at the intersection of Houston Street and Avenue A.
These crash hotspots represent only two of dozens across the East Side that have been mapped by the advocacy group to get a better view of pedestrian safety in the area, from Union Square to Chinatown.
“Nobody else is making that info publicly available right now,” Transportation Alternatives spokesman Wiley Norvell said of the report, which used crash statistics received from the Department of Transportation through Freedom of Information Law requests.
The report ranked the intersection of Delancey and Essex streets as the worst on the East Side. The intersections of First, Second and Third avenues at 14th Street saw 260 crashes over the same period, while intersections on Houston Street at Avenue A, First Avenue/Allen Street and the Bowery saw 256 crashes.
“This is the first time a community planning exercise of that scale has ever been undertaken by us,” Norvell said, explaining that the organization will take into account things like truck routes and areas with high concentration of seniors and schools. “We usually undertake it mode [of transportation] by mode or project by project, but this is much more bird’s-eye view of the problem.”
The group will be holding a series of community meetings to discuss the issue with local residents while working to develop an action plan for the East Side. The next meeting will take place in Chinatown on April 27, with another in the East Village scheduled for April 28.
Norvell said he hopes the forums will yield a more locally informed view of the situation, and "what streets are really calling out for attention."
