[Update from print version, March 11, 4:50 p.m.]

William Clark looks at the “T” that makes up the intersection of Sedgwick Avenue and 183rd Street and remembers the gruesome death of an older man who tried unsuccessfully to cross from one side of 183rd Street to the other. A car turning from Sedgwick onto 183rd Street flattened him.

“It was right there on that sewer grill,” said Clark, the longtime super of the apartment building that sits on the northeast corner of what local residents call one of the most dangerous intersections in the borough.

Because of the intersection’s proximity to a day care, three elementary schools and Bronx Community College (BCC), residents want to see a stoplight installed to regulate traffic and prevent any more pedestrian casualties and car smashups.

Right now, there are a couple of yellow caution signs telling motorists to slow down and watch for children, but residents say this does nothing to stop, or even slow, hurried drivers.

“Cars fly through there,” says Lili Jones, a member of St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church’s faith action committee who has been voicing concerns about the intersection for years. “We need a [stop] light there.” 

The problem, residents say, is that up until recently, the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) has not taken any action to remedy the situation.

“We’ve been trying to get a light there for 17 years,” Clark says.
Last spring, Jones’ faith action committee, joining forces with organizers and activists at the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, began ramping up their lobbying efforts and putting pressure on the DOT to do something. In response, DOT officials said they would complete a study of the intersection to determine what, if any, measures should be taken.

Weeks, then months, passed with no word on the study. At some point last summer, DOT officials said the report was complete and that, in their estimation, a light at the intersection was not necessary. The study was not released to the public. 

Jones says the DOT claims that it doesn’t have any deaths or injuries on record for that intersection, but that doesn’t jibe with eyewitness accounts like Clark’s.

“We know that people have been hit [there],” Jones says.

(The DOT did not respond to specific questions about the intersection, but in an e-mail response to a Norwood News inquiry, a DOT spokesperson said there had been no injuries at the intersection since 2007 and no fatalites of any kind for for the past five years. The spokesperson said the DOT was conducting a study see if the intersection meets the federal criteria for a traffic light. They did not say what that criteria might be.)

But Jones and others fought on and have enlisted the help of their new Councilman, Fernando Cabrera, who has taken on the issue as his own. Cabrera brought up concerns about the intersection in a City Hall meeting with DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and recently visited the intersection and other local hotspots with Bronx Borough Commissioner Constance Moran.

Greg Faulkner, Cabrera’s chief of staff, says Moran appears to be sympathetic and is hopeful that something will get done.
Residents say they need safety measures installed now.
Bella Espinal, who walks with a cane, says sometimes she waits 15 to 20 minutes just to cross the intersection because traffic never lets up.

James Hill, a professor at BCC, says he “never crosses” 183rd Street at Sedgwick because of the danger.

Adama Fadiga, a mother of two small children, just moved to the area, but already, she says she’s noticed the problem. “Cars just fly around the corner, they don’t check,” she says. “It’s not right. They should do something about it.”

The problem, Jones says, is that it feels like “no one is listening.”