A defective, dangerous roadway that New York state has failed to fix, despite two decades of repeated accidents at the site, has cost taxpayers $8.4 million – and cost an innocent teen her ability to walk.
The treacherous stretch of asphalt is a ramp off Exit 10 of the Van Wyck Expressway that merges with the exit ramp of the eastbound Jackie Robinson Parkway and then merges onto the westbound Grand Central Parkway in Queens.
The interchange was placed on the state’s list of most dangerous roads in 2007 based on accident data from 2004 to 2006. Only six other New York City spots made the list.
Water accumulation has been cited as a persistent hazard there – and it played a particularly tragic role in a 2003 accident that left a 17-year-old girl a paraplegic and resulted last week in an $8.4 million settlement with the city and state.
The city’s arterial-maintenance unit sent a letter to the state Department of Transportation requesting a study of the area on Nov. 19, 2001 – eight months after a fatal accident at the site in which “possible hazardous street conditions” were cited in a police report.
“Water forms in the left lane without proper drainage,” the police report read.
The city letter to the DOT said “a large number of vehicular accidents” made maintenance of a guardrail at the site “impossible.”
“It is constantly being hit by vehicles,” the letter said.
Last week, the DOT could not say whether the requested traffic study was ever done.
In eight depositions of city and state employees that helped lead to last week’s settlement, many admitted they were aware of problems at the location as far back as 1990.
One DOT employee said the area has always had “serious underground water problems.”
A former state provisional supervisor said: “There was water there all the time. I can’t lie.”
DOT spokesman Adam Levine said New York has tried to repair the road but could not because it was built improperly and at a low water table.
There was zero precipitation the night of the teen’s accident on Jan. 12, 2003 – but, as always, the Exit 10 off-ramp was wet and icy anyway.
“They were driving down the street in the left lane in the dark. They weren’t expecting any ice,” said Neil Brody, a lawyer with the firm Brody, Benard and Branch who, along with colleague Tanya Branch, represented the victim.
But the car hit a patch of black ice, skidded onto the four-lane Grand Central Parkway and slammed into an overpass. It flipped, and she was thrown from the back seat.
The victim, who asked that her name be withheld, was listed as “likely to die” and spent five months in the hospital, some of it in a coma.
She was left paralyzed, confined to her bedroom and home because they are not outfitted for a handicapped person.
“My whole life changed,” said the soft-spoken victim, who is now 22 and getting her GED in the hopes of opening a cosmetology business.
“I lost my teenage years. My life was at a complete standstill . . . I’m a lot stronger now. At the beginning, I was suicidal, but I’m doing much better.”
“I can’t cry about it,” she added. “I just really hope they fix that road.”
Levine, the DOT spokesman, said an up-to-$345 million renovation of the area was supposed to begin in two years and will not be finished until 2016.
“We have endless evidence that the city and state both knew that there were serious problems at this location” for two decades, Brody said.
“And yet it was allowed to exist, and it cost this girl her legs. It’s unacceptable.”
Levine, however, said the road was built defectively. “This problem requires a lot of effort, and we’re doing everything we can to figure out a solution,” he said.