Advocates rally in Bay Ridge for safer streets
A week after 10-year-old Jobe Kan was struck by a car and badly injured, street safety activists convened in Bay Ridge at the scene of the accident, 84th Street and Fort Hamilton Parkway, to make the case for enhanced pedestrian protections on city streets.
Elected officials joined representatives of Families for Safe Streets, Bay Ridge Advocates Keeping Everyone Safe (BRAKES) and Transportation Alternatives on Sunday, May 6 at the South Brooklyn Safe Streets Rally, during which attendees called upon Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State legislature to extend and expand the city’s speed safety cameras authorization, while also demanding that municipal leaders fast-track the implementation of street redesign projects on the city’s most deadly corridors.
Maureen Landers, of BRAKES — whose son sustained a broken leg after a car struck him and who was injured herself by a speeding motorist in 2009 — contended that the expansion of the speed camera program was “overdue. I hope that Albany can deliver on the cameras. However, I am concerned that the numbers of speed cameras wouldn’t be enough to cover all schools. I think there’s inequity and inequality. Every child deserves coverage and protection. I’m shocked we’re playing politics with kids’ lives.”