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Bus crash latest in string of pedestrian accidents

By David Freedlander and Marlene Naanes, amNewYork Staff Writers | dfreedlander@am-ny.com and mnaanes@am-ny.com

June 24, 2008

A spate of gruesome pedestrian accidents over the last few days has left New Yorkers nervous about the safety of city sidewalks, while advocates and pols are calling for more to be done.

Monday, a 57-year-old woman was killed and several people were injured when a dump truck careened into the back of a Fung Wah bus in Chinatown. The accident came after a weekend where four cars rammed into pedestrians over the course of two days, hitting 22 people and seriously injuring seven.

"We need to be a lot more aggressive about protecting pedestrians," said Wiley Norvell, spokesman for Transportation Alternatives, a bicycling and pedestrian advocacy group. "With pedestrian injuries and fatalities, it is second nature to treat it like the weather, like, oh, it's terrible, but it's not something we can change. But in fact many of these crashes are preventable."

There were 139 pedestrian fatalities in 2007, down from 254 in 1997, according to the city's Department of Transportation.

Neither the DOT nor the NYPD would provide pedestrian accident figures for 2008, but figures provided by state Department of Motor Vehicles showed that were over 10,000 incidents in 2006.

A spokesman for the DOT and a spokesman for the NYPD declined to comment.

Pedestrian advocates have called on the city to pay greater attention to street design by lowering the speed limit in places, increasing enforcement, and by adding sidewalk and curb space.

" New York is the greatest walking city in the country. People shouldn't feel afraid to walk down the sidewalk," said Norvell. "We need to design streets where the penalty for jaywalking isn't death."

He suggested crosswalks where pedestrians can cross before traffic is allowed to go and increased use of sidewalk bollards as a key way to improve sidewalk safety.

"If the mayor is serious about PlaNYC 2030, then he should include a pedestrian safety program as the city grows in population," said City Councilman Vincent Gentile (D-Brooklyn), who last year sponsored a bill that would require the DOT to conduct a safety audit at the city's most dangerous intersections.

"We need for DOT to do more. Pedestrians have not felt safe."

Monday's accident is under investigation, but the driver of the dump truck, Alejandro Fallo, 54, told police that his brakes failed. The Fung Wah bus that he hit was boarding passengers for a journey to Boston and was sent flying onto the sidewalk and into the glass window of a building.

Fallo and two other passengers were taken to Bellevue Hospital, and another was taken to St. Vincent's hospital in serious condition.