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I used to not be able to get across it when my kids

Written by ABC AUDIO on December 9, 2022

Union Street and 8th Avenue has long been clogged, and dangerous. (Peter Senzamici)

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — Park Slope resident Joanna Oltman Smith has been calling on the city for 15 years to do something about the intersection where this week a woman crossing the street saw both her legs broken in a crash.

“I used to not be able to get across it when my kid was in a stroller,” Smith said of the intersection at Union Street and Eighth Avenue. “That’s how I started my community activism.”

Smith’s concerns were only worsened by the news Wednesday morning that a paratransit van had crashed into a 25-year-old pedestrian and left her with two broken legs.

But Smith was hardly surprised.

Crash Mapper/DOT data show 35 people have been injured in 166 crashes over the last decade.

Find out what’s happening in Park Slopewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

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Future Community Board Six chair, and current executive director of StreetsPAC, Eric McClure has only seen minimal changes to the intersection, despite years and years of neighborhood advocacy, he told Patch.

But McClure noted there were signs that the city was open to changes.

“They made Union Street a two-way,” McClure told Patch, “and implemented the turn-calming bumps around the start of the pandemic…But I’m not sure how much difference it actually makes.”

“A lot of the problems that were apparent 15 years ago, I think are still still very much present today,” McClure said. “Traffic remains probably as bad as ever, maybe worse.”

Smith said the city for years has ignored the dangerous situation, despite hundreds of letters to commissioners, 311 calls, talking to city Council members and walkthroughs with DOT workers.

“You know, it’s like they’ve just thrown up their hands,” Smith said. “And now someone’s in the hospital.”

One solution Smith has asked for, a traffic cop, has been shot down repeatedly, she said.

“You’ll hear all about staffing shortages,” Smith said, and many commanding officers don’t seem interested in traffic.

McClure said he’s hopeful for the Grand Army Plaza redesign, which could have impacts stretching down Union Street.

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“Given the way that the police department has largely checked out in traffic enforcement over the last couple of years, ” he said, “I do think ultimately, the design solutions there that’s necessary.”