The city installed oversized stop signs on Ryder Street at Avenue P last week in response to a 9-year-old boy’s injury at the intersection last month. But it needs to speed up a study for more stop signs and speed bumps, because the slightly larger postings won’t make a big difference alone, locals said.
“It is completely ridiculous, it’s not going to help anything,” said Ryder Street resident Mark Posner. “The amount of traffic coming down this street, they should put speed bumps on this block to discourage people from coming down the block and all-way stop signs to slow the traffic down.”
A woman driving on Ryder Street toward the Belt Parkway collided with a box truck at the junction on Dec. 9, bouncing off the truck and striking young Yehuda Aryeah, who went to the hospital in critical condition for head and torso injuries.
Officials are still investigating, and the Department of Transportation responded last week by putting up larger stop signs — they are 36 inches in diameter instead of 30 inches — at the intersection, as well as mounting the signs higher than they were previously.
The six-inch-larger signs are not enough, according to a local who started a 1,000-signiture-strong petition for a four-way stop and tree removal at the junction.
“From the naked eye it does not look bigger. I went across the street to the other stop sign and unless you bring a measuring tape with you, you’re not gonna be able to tell,” said Nachman Mostofsky, who lives a block away.
Officials previously said the crossing does not meet the national standards for more traffic controls, but they changed their tune after the tyke was injured last month, Mostofsky said. The agency now plans to install speed humps on Ryder Street and conduct studies for speed bumps and a four-way stop, a spokeswoman said.
“The remainder of the work is expected to be completed in 2017 — pending the outcome of the aforementioned studies,” she said.
Appeals court judge Eugene Fahey recently ordered the city to pay $8 million to a Gerritsen Beacher who was hit while riding his bike in 2004. The city “should have conducted a traffic calming study and implemented traffic calming measures to reduce speeding,” the judge wrote in his opinion.
