‘This could have been prevented,’ Possible safety redesign on the way amid fatal Sunset Park hit-and-run
According to Transportation Alternatives, 11 people have died in crashes along Third Avenue since 2014, along with people injured.
More Stories
Advocates and politicians are again calling for a safety redesign along Third Avenue in Brooklyn after a 28-year-old woman was killed in a hit-and-run crash on Saturday.
Tony Perez says he saw the crash and came to bring flowers to Jiayi Zheng’s growing memorial on Third Avenue and 55th Street in Sunset Park.
“I still have it up here. I still think about when I saw her. If you would have seen the way she flew from there, hit there and just bent into the pole,” said Perez.
Zheng is just one of many. According to Transportation Alternatives, 11 people have died in crashes along Third Avenue since 2014, along with people injured.
“We definitely think this could have been prevented. She was not the first person to die on Third Avenue. But she could have been the last,” said Michelle Deme, with Transportation Alternatives.
Local officials sent a letter to the New York City Department of Transportation calling for change. Dele says renewed calls comes after years of advocating for it. Back in 2023, the NYC DOT had a proposal for a redesign, but it stalled.
“If this safety redesign would have been implemented or not postponed in 2025, we could have saved her life. There was a lot of elements to that design, but a big part of it was the shortening of crossing distances, which could have saved all of these people's lives that I've been talking about,” said Dele.
Earlier in the week, Mayor Zohran Mamdani mentioned a redesign along Third Avenue as part of the BQE redesign. City sources tell News 12 there will be more information on a redesign in the coming months.
