Southern Brooklyn Pols Demand DOT Traffic Study At Dangerous Sheepshead Bay Intersection

Today, local politicians in southern Brooklyn met with city and state Department of Transportation officials and community leaders to discuss a plagued intersection in Sheepshead Bay.

On Friday, January 27, Assemblymember Steven Cymbrowitz, whose district includes parts of Sheepshead Bay, Gravesend, Midwood, and Brighton Beach, was joined by Brooklyn Commissioner of the NYC DOT Keith Bray, reps from the state DOT, members of the 60th and 61st Precincts, staff of Daniel Donovan, State Senators Diane Savino and Marty Golden, and City Councilmembers Mark Treyger and Chaim Deutsch for a site visit at Avenue X and Ocean Parkway.

Avenue X and Ocean Parkway has been the site of an alarming number of traffic-related injuries during the past decade, BKLYNER reported. This includes the recent death of 88-year-old Feliks Dadiomov on January 10 and a Gravesend father two months before that.

Cymbrowitz requested the site visit after Dadiomov’s tragic death while crossing Ocean Parkway on foot.

“This is an accident-plagued location that is in urgent need of remediation and I thank the media for bringing it to our attention,” said Assemblymember Cymbrowitz today. “I’m hopeful that changes will be made to keep pedestrians and drivers safe.”

Cymbrowitz said the DOT will be conducting a traffic study that examines the traffic signal timing and lighting conditions at the busy corner, with an eye toward alleviating safety risks.

Since 2009, there have been three fatalities and 38 injuries at Ocean Parkway and Avenue X, according to data from the Vision Zero Review. But the safety issues aren’t isolated to this intersection — the Vision Zero map lists another fatal collision one block north on Ocean Parkway at Crawford Street in 2011, and a fifth on Ocean Parkway and Brighton Court in 2013.