BY CHRIS WILLIAMS | At Union Square on Tuesday evening, activists said that much progress has been made in the last year to realize Vision Zero, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s initiative to eliminate traffic-related fatalities in the city.
Speaking from a small stage located behind a gurney covered in yellow carnations, elected officials, family members of traffic victims and their supporters expressed optimism while acknowledging the challenges that remain.
“As I look out at a sea of yellow, the color of hope, I am hopeful that together we can build a legacy for those we have lost and in a safer and more caring city,” said Amy Cohen, a Brooklyn resident who lost her son Sammy Cohen-Eckstein in 2013.
In the past six months, traffic crashes have claimed 127 lives and resulted in 24,890 injuries citywide, according to Transportation Alternatives, which organized the vigil in cooperation with Families for Safe Streets.
Such crashes are not “accidents,” activists said. Street redesigns and stricter traffic enforcement can prevent incidents such as the one that resulted in Cohen-Eckstein’s death as he chased a soccer ball into a street near Prospect Park in Brooklyn.
Cohen was not alone in sharing a personal tragedy. The solemn and often tearful crowd held up photos and signs with names of their loved ones and other traffic victims. One group came from Japan for the event in recognition of Ryo Oyamada, who was struck by a New York Police Department patrol car as he crossed a street in Queens in 2013. Oyamada had been having a great time in the city as he studied English, according to his mother, Chie. The family is currently involved in a wrongful death lawsuit against the department.
City councilmembers and state assemblymembers, meanwhile, read aloud the victims’ names chronologically as members of the crowd pounded their chests in solidarity after each name.
New Jersey resident Rebecca Harris-Lee came in support of her friend’s 22-year-old daughter Ella Bandes. A reportedly distracted M.T.A. bus driver killed Bandes in Brooklyn several years ago as she was crossing the street.
But it is not just bus drivers who need to be vigilant about traffic safety, Harris-Lee added.
“We are in an epidemic of distracted drivers and we are also those drivers,” she said.
