Residents want traffic light at accident location

After a December 8 accident at West Fifth Street and Quentin Road left seven people injured and one 60 year-old Asian female dead, the community is demanding action.

To that end, Community Board 11 has sent a request to the city’s Department of Transportation to study the area, which residents claim has been the site of several accidents.

The incident took place after a driver reportedly blew off a stop sign. No criminality was suspected, but residents have desperately asked on several occasions that a traffic light be installed at the location, which those who live nearby have characterized as dangerous.

Marnee Elias-Pavia, district manager of CB 11, said the board’s December 13 letter to DOT asking for the study was the first such request submitted to DOT; through conversations with residents, board members came to the conclusion that there was a need for more traffic control at the intersection.

The email, which was addressed to Joseph Palmieri, DOT’s Brooklyn borough commissioner, read, “We have been advised by area residents that this location has frequent accidents with the most recent this past weekend, which tragically resulted in the loss of life.”

A subsequent letter from DOT’s Brooklyn office informed the board that it would “be able to provide a response to you mid-April 2013.”

Councilmember David Greenfield said that he wants to make sure that this never happens again. He said he would be meeting with the family involved in the crash at the district attorney’s office within the next week to “review the situation in detail,” and decide whether charges should be filed.

He is seeking “justice” for the family, Greenfield said. “This is obviously serious, and we’re doing everything that we can with the commissioner of transportation to make traffic changes and improvements,” he added, pointing out, “It’s a difficult terrain to navigate,” contending that a violation of a traffic code, allegedly the cause of this accident, should be treated as “higher than an accident—criminal.”