UPPER WEST SIDE — An intersection along West End Avenue located near a school and a highway entrance has gotten more dangerous in recent years while the rest of the thoroughfare has seen a drop in traffic crashes, data shows.
The amount of crashes with injuries at the intersection of West End Avenue and West 96th Street quadrupled between 2013 and last year — with that number expected to stay about the same in 2016, according to NYPD data.
There were three injuries recorded at the intersection in 2013, seven in 2014 and 12 in 2015. Through Dec. 9 of this year, there have been 11 injuries at the intersection, data shows.
Meanwhile, all the other intersections on West End Avenue in the West 90s combined have seen a decrease in crashes with injuries during the same time period.
Excluding West 96th Street, there were a total of 17 injuries in 2013 at the streets in the West 90s intersecting with West End Avenue, a total of seven each in 2014 and 2015, and only three this year through Dec. 9, data shows.
The crashes could have involved bicyclists or pedestrians, but all of them involved motor vehicles.
Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal attributed the decrease in crashes on the avenue in the West 90s to a redesign by the Department of Transportation in 2014, which included reducing the number of lanes and adding pedestrian islands at some corners.
But the intersection of West End Avenue and 96th Street, which does not have a pedestrian island, also needs traffic-signal changes, Rosenthal wrote in a letter to Department of Transportation Manhattan Borough Commissioner Luis Sanchez on Dec. 8.
Residents avoid that intersection completely because they don't feel it's safe, she noted.
"They report too many near misses with vehicles turning left onto 96th Street from northbound West End Avenue that fail to cede the right of way," her letter stated.
Rosenthal suggested a dedicated right-hand turn-signal phase for southbound cars on West End Avenue as a way of combating the problem.
Community Board 7 members also said at a meeting Tuesday that they are interested in seeing the DOT make changes there.
"There’s just a massive conflict in the morning, especially with schoolchildren [from nearby P.S. 75] and cars speeding up coming west on 96th street, starting to get themselves into highway mode. In every case you’ve got dangerous activity and conflicts, and it’s all coming to a head at that intersection," said board member Rich Robbins.
The installation of a pedestrian island and changing the timing of traffic lights at the intersection are among suggestions CB 7 members hope to float with the DOT.
John Chambers, the husband of Jean Chambers, who was killed by a driver at West 95th Street and West End Avenue in July 2014, has said that he believes the islands would have saved his wife's life.
The DOT did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
