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West Thames and Battery Place
September 21, 2012 10:50 AM By Steven E. Greer
Just two days after our story listing West Thames as a death trap in need of addressing by the new BPCA leadership, a serious accident occurred. At approximately 10:30 AM, a high performance racing motorcycle with a male driver was driving Eastward toward the West Side Highway. Multiple witnesses said that the motorcycle was significantly exceeding the speed limit. Turning left onto Battery Place, from West Thames, was a minivan from Canada. The motorcycle driver struck the van, injuring himself. It is unclear which driver will be charged by the police at this time.
The wide West Thames street with no physical barrier in the median, and no stop lights, allows cars on a daily basis to speed around corners trying to beet the stop light at the West Side Highway. Also, drivers are often distracted by looking for parking spots and often make illegal U-turns, creating blind spots. Nearby is the new local school PS 276 with hundreds if young kids traversing the dangerous West Thames.
The Community Board 1, BPC subdivision, has discussed this problem in the past and accomplished nothing in terms of having the proper street controls installed. Meanwhile, at the intersection of West Thames and West Side Highway, more than $900,000 is spent by the LMDC to pay for human street crossing guards.
(BatteryPark.TV exclusively reported this ahead of the other local outlets, such as DNAinfo, Downtown Express, Tribeca Tribune, and Broadsheet)
The minivan drivers from Canada
Thanks for covering this important issue.