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Death count rises on Third Avenue; Locals blame DOT

By Josh Saul
for The Brooklyn Paper

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The death of a 4-year-old boy on busy Third Avenue happened because the Department of Transportation failed to follow through on its own recommendations for calming the dangerous strip, activists charged this week.

James Jacaricce was run down on Feb. 13 at the intersection of Third Avenue and Baltic Street — less than half a mile from where two more young boys were run over in 2004, and also not far from another Third Avenue intersection where a 6-year-old boy was run over last year.

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Following those deaths, the DOT promised to jumpstart $4-million in planned safety improvements — but those most of those improvements were never made. The planned traffic-calming work would have included raised crosswalks to slow traffic, sidewalk extensions at corners for safer turns, and altered the timing of “walk” signs to allow pedestrians to get a head start.

“These particular traffic-calming measures are designed specifically to protect neighborhood streets from through-traffic and help prevent the type of ‘right-turn conflict’ that killed all [the] boys,” says community activist Aaron Naparstek on the Web site Streetsblog.org.

DOT did not return our calls, but emailed Naparstek and said that the traffic-calming devices were delayed because “underground utilities issues led to the need for more complex designs.”

The agency said 101 “neckdowns” would be installed in the area by 2008 — and Naparstek pointed out that the neighborhood began agitating for them in 1996.

©2007 Community Newspaper Group

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