In the wake of the death of 12-year-old Dashane Santana, who was struck and killed crossing Delancey Street last Friday, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is asking the Department of Transportation to assign crossing guards to the dangerous thoroughfare. "With traffic coming on and off the Williamsburg Bridge and a wide area for pedestrians to cross, there is an urgent need for a more aggressive approach to safety," Silver wrote in a letter to commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan obtained by DNAinfo. "We simply cannot wait for another tragedy to occur."
Silver is also calling for longer times for pedestrians to cross and a comprehensive study of Delancey Street, which has been deemed one of the city's most dangerous roads for pedestrians and cyclists. A disproportionate amount of fatalities occur along the road, which is riddled with constant, high-speed traffic from the Williamsburg Bridge.
The DOT has installed countdown boxes at many intersections on Delancey, and concrete barriers at the mouth of the bridge where Santana was struck, but many people say pedestrians don't have enough time to cross. And at the time of the accident a traffic cop was on duty, waving traffic through when Santana was killed. DNAinfo notes that such crossing guards exist on West Street in Lower Manhattan, after residents expressed concern at crossing five lanes of the West Side Highway.
Silver, along with State Senator Daniel Squadron, Councilmember Margaret Chin and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, are all part of the Delancey Street Safety Working Group, which convened in September after the death of cyclist Jeffrey Axelrod in August on Delancey Street at Chrystie Street. A legislative source tells us that another meeting of the task force is being scheduled in the coming weeks, and would underscore "the need for the agencies responsible to move quickly on measures to improve safety on Delancey Street."
