A man is dead after being struck early Wednesday morning by a hit-and-run driver on deadly Canal Street in Lower Manhattan’s Little Italy.
Police say an unidentified man in his 30s was crossing Canal Street at Lafayette Street at about 4:50 a.m. Wednesday when he was struck by a dark-colored SUV, which fled the scene of the crash. First responders found the man unconscious, unresponsive, and with traumatic injuries on the roadway.
He was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead Wednesday.
Police have not identified the driver of the dark-colored SUV and did not capture their license plate. The incident remains under investigation.
Safe street advocates said that such a crash on Canal Street was all too predictable. The road has three lanes of traffic in each direction, with vehicles loading onto the road from the Holland Tunnel in the west and the Manhattan Bridge from the east.
In the past decade, 9 people have lost their lives in collisions on Canal Street, including 7 pedestrians, one cyclist, and one motorist, according to NYC Crash Mapper. Crashes have injured an additional 1,045 people.
“City Hall knows that Canal Street is one of the most dangerous in our city, but has refused to fix it despite death, serious injury, and repeated calls for a comprehensive redesign,” said Danny Harris, executive director of Transportation Alternatives. “It’s high time for our leaders to put safety first on our streets.”
Traffic collisions have taken the lives of 40 people across the five boroughs so far this year, more than 17% higher than the tallies seen at this time last year.
