Two cars collided on Oct. 16 at a Ridge intersection that neighbors say they’ve been begging the city to fix for years.
Authorities say the vehicles slammed into each other at the corner of 67th Street and Ridge Boulevard at 9:42 am. There were no fatalities, but two people were taken to Lutheran Medical Center for treatment.
Residents said that crashes are a common occurrence at the junction, and blamed the mayhem on the abrupt bend in Ridge Boulevard as it heads toward Sunset Park — a problem aggravated when cars park near the corner. Ridgites repeatedly petitioned the Department of Transportation — without success — to replace the stop sign at the intersection with a traffic signal, and warned of more serious and deadly accidents yet to come.
“It’s a time bomb waiting to go off,” said Steve Schnibbe, who lives nearby and snapped photos of the scene.
Community Board 10 leaders said that they have received numerous complaints about the intersection, and had asked the city for a stoplight — only to be rejected.
“It is our judgment that additional controls are unwarranted at this time,” reads a 2009 letter to the board from Brooklyn Transportation Commissioner Joseph Palmieri.
Palmieri claimed that the city had examined the pedestrian and vehicular usage of the corner, and found it insufficient to justify a light. But CB10 said it would consider asking the city to give the intersection a second look.
“We could ask for another study,” CB10 district manager Josephine Beckmann said.
