“Mayor Adams is Moving Backwards on Street Safety”: Statement after Weekend of Carnage with Multiple Car Crash Deaths Across NYC; SUV Driver Kills Eight-Year-Old Boy Along Eastern Parkway
Three people were killed in a weekend of car crash deaths across NYC, while Mayor Adams is working to rip out a safety project.
The Adams administration will be in court tomorrow, trying to remove the newly installed safety improvements on Bedford Avenue. Prior to the Bedford safety improvements, two pedestrians were killed along the same stretch of Bedford Avenue in 2024 alone.
Traffic violence has killed 20 pedestrians in Brooklyn in 2025. Eastern Parkway is the sixth most dangerous street in Brooklyn for pedestrians.
Speeding is common on Eastern Parkway. Over 8,500 automated speeding tickets were issued to drivers just one block away at Eastern Parkway and Troy Ave in 2021 — nearly one speeding ticket an hour, every hour, for a year.
BROOKLYN, NY — On Saturday afternoon in Crown Heights, an SUV driver killed eight-year-old Mordechai Keller, who was crossing Albany Avenue at Eastern Parkway. It was a deadly weekend for traffic violence across NYC: an e-scooter rider was killed by a van driver in Cambria Heights, Queens, and a motorcycle rider was killed by an SUV driver in Soundview, the Bronx.
Eastern Parkway is considered to be the world’s first parkway, originally designed for leisurely strolling. Today, it acts as a major thoroughfare for drivers, and is the sixth most dangerous street in Brooklyn for pedestrians.
Instead of working diligently to expand safety infrastructure, Mayor Adams has been focused on ripping it out. When the mayor announced plans to remove three blocks of safety upgrades on Bedford Avenue, Transportation Alternatives and a Brooklyn family immediately sued to save the safety project, and a ‘Temporary Restraining Order’ (TRO) was ordered by a judge until a scheduled hearing in August. Former Brooklyn Democratic Party Boss Frank Seddio filed to intervene in the lawsuit on the side of the City, and the judge moved the hearing date up to July 1, shortening the TRO by over a month. The Adams administration will be in court tomorrow attempting to get a judge’s permission to proceed with ripping up street safety improvements.
The Bedford Avenue safety improvements are working — since the redesign, fatalities, serious injuries, and total injuries have fallen in the first five months of 2025 from the same period in 2024. Pedestrian injuries fell 10% and motorist injuries fell by 42%. Two pedestrians were killed by drivers in 2024, but no one has been killed on the corridor in 2025. Serious injuries dropped from two last year to one this year.
Statement from Ben Furnas, Executive Director at Transportation Alternatives:
“We are heartbroken to hear that a child was killed by an SUV driver in Crown Heights. This is exactly the type of deadly crash we fight to prevent every day.
“This was a particularly deadly weekend for car crash deaths in our city. Unfortunately, Mayor Adams is moving backwards on street safety and working to make our streets even deadlier. Instead of improving and expanding safety projects, the Adams administration is working to tear them out. We’ll see the mayor in court tomorrow, as we fight to save upgrades on Bedford Avenue that have already demonstrably improved safety.”
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