Williamsburg led the city in traffic-related deaths last year, a new analysis shows, prompting Brooklyn officials to demand that Mayor de Blasio focus his “Vision Zero’’ efforts on the hipster neighborhood.
“We hope Mayor de Blasio will use North Brooklyn as the first neighborhood for implementing Vision Zero — including a comprehensive study that looks at safety for pedestrians and cyclists, traffic, and more,” said City Councilman Antonio Reynoso, whose district includes Williamsburg, on Sunday.
According to a heat map of city traffic deaths based on preliminary NYPD data and compiled by the blog I Quant, Williamsburg was the scene of eight fatalities in 2013. Four of those killed were pedestrians.
And just Saturday, an MTA bus killed 21-year-old Marisol Martinez as she walked across the street.
Her grieving cousin José Gonzalez said he watched her get crushed by the bus.
The city neighborhoods with the next highest number of traffic deaths in 2013 were Canarsie in Brooklyn and Sunnyside in Queens, according to the data. They each had seven.
The Web site put the city’s total number of traffic fatalities at just below 80, although the NYPD registered several more.