As the year draws to a close, we are continuing to publish some of the stories we couldn’t get to earlier this year [due to staff shortages]. 

 

An 18-wheel tractor-trailer knocked over a street sign on the border of Fordham Manor and University Heights after its rear wheels got caught on a relatively new pair of street bollards, two-foot-high plastic barricades designed to protect pedestrians on a traffic island and slow down city traffic. The NYPD reported the incident was the second such crash to have occurred at that particular location in less than 8 hours.

 

An unnamed NYPD spokesperson told Norwood News that the bollard collision was reported at 12.19 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 25. Reading from a police report, the spokesperson said, “It was a single-vehicle collision. I think it looks like the driver of the vehicle, a 32-year-old male, was operating his vehicle northbound on University Avenue, attempting to make a left turn into West Fordham Road, when the truck struck a traffic sign at the southwest corner of the intersection, causing damage to the sign and the lane divider.”

The spokesperson said there was no criminal activity involved and no injuries, “just property damage.”

 

On the day of the incident, police officers had West Fordham Road blocked off for about two and a half hours as a second, heavy-duty tow-truck was brought in to lift the impacted tractor-trailer’s rear wheels over the bollards and allowing the tractor-trailer to be towed to the side of the road.

The tractor-trailer, which belonged to Steven’s Transport, bore a Texas license plate and had had its rims and tires damaged as a result of the accident. It was later met by a similar tractor-trailer into which its cargo was transferred.

 

The police spokesperson confirmed the second crash that day had occurred at the same intersection at 4.45 a.m. earlier that morning. “This one looks like it mounted the median and the operator of the vehicle fled the location,” the police spokesperson said, reading from an incident report.

Asked if the vehicle involved in the early morning incident had been reported stolen, the NYPD official replied, “It doesn’t appear that way. I guess they just didn’t stay there to report it. I don’t know if they left the car per say since the vehicle fled, but [the driver] didn’t notify about the damage.”

 

As previously reported, NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) has been installing bollards at intersections across the City for about the last two years. Some people we spoke to hadn’t noticed them and most of the bollards seem to exist without incident. However, at one intersection at Van Nest Avenue and Morris Park Avenue in the Van Nest neighborhood, multiple crashes have been reported to date, and at least three bollard-related crashes took place during the month of April 2022.

On April 29, Norwood News contacted DOT about the crashes which occurred on April 4, April 26, and April 28. We did not receive an immediate response.

On Tuesday, Nov. 15, a request was made once again with DOT asking for information on the two crashes at University Avenue and West Fordham Road on Oct. 25 and the three earlier crashes at Van Nest Avenue and East Tremont in April 2022. We also asked for any available crash statistics the agency had on the bollard program. We did not receive an immediate response.

As reported, in response to an inquiry in January 2020 about the then-new, City bollard program, an unnamed DOT official told Norwood News, “As with many of our safety improvement projects, it takes time for motorists to get adjusted to the new street design.”

 

Two additional bollard-related crashes were reported in December.