Safe streets advocates renewed their call on Monday for installing a two-way protected bike lane along Brooklyn’s Lafayette Avenue following an early morning crash that, police say, left an e-bike rider in critical condition.
The group Transportation Alternatives says the intersection of Lafayette and Bedford Avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where a 40-year-old e-bike rider was struck by a 27-year-old driver behind the wheel of an Acura SUV on the morning of Dec. 8, is “deadly.”
“We’re heartbroken to hear that yet another New Yorker is in the hospital after being hit by a driver,” Transportation Alternatives Executive Director Ben Furnas said in a statement.
The NYPD says it received a 911 call about the e-bike rider being hit by the SUV driver at 1:09 a.m. on Dec. 8. The driver was heading northbound on Bedford Avenue when he turned and struck the e-bike rider, who was going eastbound on Lafayette Avenue.
The unidentified rider was taken to Kings County Hospital in critical but stable condition, cops said. The driver remained at the scene following the crash.
It is unclear whether the driver will be charged; as of publication time, no arrests had been made, police reported.
According to Transportation Alternatives, the intersection is considered dangerous because it is located near where Lafayette Avenue transitions from one lane of traffic to two, which the group claims encourages speeding.
Additionally, the advocates point out that the bike lanes on Lafayette Avenue are not protected and stop before the intersection.
At the same intersection, a speeding driver mowed down a pedestrian last year.
The group’s Brooklyn Activist Committee has been pushing for adding protected bike lanes along both Lafayette and Dekalb Avenues since three-month old Apolline Mong-Guillemin was killed by a reckless driver in a 2021 crash. The driver in that incident, which took place on in nearby Clinton Hill, was sentenced to 9 years in prison in 2023.
Furnas said the latest crash should serve as a call to action to finally install a protected bike lane along Lafayette Avenue, which could prevent similar carnage in the future.
“This is exactly the type of crash and injury we fight to prevent every day,” Furnas said. “We can’t wait any longer for protected bike lanes on DeKalb and Lafayette avenues. These streets are deadly. How many New Yorkers have to be hit and killed or seriously injured for us to see change? Let this be the last crash on Lafayette Avenue, the last hospitalization, the last serious injury.”
The city Department of Transportation, which oversees the city’s streetscape, said it is reviewing the crash. When asked by amNewYork, the agency did not specifically address the stated concerns from Transportation Alternatives regarding the nature of Lafayette Avenue.
