The NYPD has released footage of one of the vehicles involved in a fatal early morning crash on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn this weekend. Two drivers struck and killed 49-year-old Rodney Graham as he attempted to cross the avenue in the pouring rain early Sunday morning. One driver remained on the scene and has not been charged. The other fled and remains at large.
According to the NYPD, officers responded to the intersection of Atlantic Avenue and Rockaway Avenue in Brownsville at about 4:20 a.m. on Sunday. On the scene, they determined that Graham had been struck by two drivers while attempting to cross Atlantic Avenue southbound at the intersection of Rockaway Avenue. Both drivers were traveling on Rockaway Avenue when the crash occurred.
An ongoing NYPD investigation has not concluded whether Graham was crossing with the light when he was struck.
Graham was pronounced dead on arrival at Brookdale Hospital.
Safe streets advocates have long considered Atlantic Avenue one of the most dangerous streets in NYC, and Mayor de Blasio designated the roadway as one of his Vision Zero "Great Streets" in March of 2014. According to Streetsblog, the stretch saw 25 fatal crashes between the beginning of 2011 and November 2015.
Transportation Alternatives has also mapped crash data for the Avenue from 2002 to 2011 [PDF], documenting 1,044 pedestrian injuries and 28 pedestrian deaths in that timeframe.
In the spring of 2014, Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg called Atlantic Avenue a top priority for Vision Zero treatment. While specifics were thin, Vision Zero generally outlines the need for speed and red light cameras to ticket drivers, as well as shorter crosswalks, wider pedestrian medians and islands, longer crossing times and restricted turns.
An eight mile stretch of Atlantic Avenue from the Brooklyn Heights waterfront to 76th Street in Woodhaven was designated as a 25 m.p.h. speed limit slow zone that April. And last August, a smattering of safety improvements were rolled out at two choice intersections along Atlantic—Underhill and Washington Avenues, which saw 99 injuries from traffic crashes between 2009 and 2013.
The Great Streets plan for Atlantic Avenue was released last July—a $60 million initiative focusing on two miles from Pennsylvania Avenue to Rockaway Parkway. Construction on the first phase of the redesign—detailed here, it has raised concerns among some advocates about inadequate speeding prevention—would not be complete until the second half of 2017.
Following Sunday's fatal crash, Transportation Alternatives Director Paul Steely White called for expedited safety improvements along the full length of Atlantic Avenue.
"The entire corridor needs a complete street redesign with expanded safe space for pedestrians, along with protected bike lanes," he said in a statement. "We call on the Department of Transportation to move rapidly to fix the hazardous conditions that encourage speeding and failure to yield on Atlantic Avenue."
The organization's "People First on Atlantic Avenue" campaign has more than 5,000 signatures as of this writing in support of these and other improvements.
