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July 14, 2015- By Steven E. Greer
On June 15th, at 4:45 AM, local BPC resident Roberta Kahan was walking her dog across South End Avenue at the dangerous West Thames Street intersection, when a Volkswagen ran into her. She bounced off of the windshield and landed on the West side of South End. She suffered cuts and bruises to her head and a strained shoulder. She was taken to Bellevue Hospital and released.
This intersection is one of the hotspots that BatteryPark.TV has fought to have corrected with traffic lights. The City DOT was set to install lights when the BPCA intervened and told them not to do so. Instead, ineffective stop signs hidden by trees were installed.
The BPCA is taking its sweet time to now “study” the problem and has hired Stantec to design a plan to change all of South End Avenue. The more reputable urban design firm PPS was rejected despite submitting an RFP that was nearly half the cost of Stantec.
Dennis Mehiel is the CEO of the BPCA, appointed by Governor Cuomo. Shari Hyman is the president of the BPCA.
For unknown reasons, the local advertising fliers, such as the Broadsheet, did not report on this hit and run accident. The publisher, Robert Simko, and most of the CB1, were all aware of it.
“Instead, ineffective stop signs hidden by trees were installed.” I never cross without waiting for a car to actually stop and wave me on. It is a death trap as it almost was on June 15! I’m not going to be the one who gets killed before they actually fix the situation!
Thanks. I wish we had gotten the contract. There are a lot of short term interventions that could be tested to begin shaping what the log term goal and outcome needs to be.
Fred Kent
President, Project for Public Spaces
Poor Roberta! She was very banged up. The woman who hit her got out of the car, asked if she was OK, and then drove off. No cameras caught it! One nice part of the story is that some of the local dog walkers heard about it and volunteered to take turns walking her dog until she was back on her feet.