On Wednesday, November 19, 2025, around 4 pm, a 10-year-old girl was struck by a car while crossing Columbia Street at President Street in the rapidly-growing Columbia Street Waterfront neighborhood. This incident highlights that this is an unsafe intersection that is long overdue for safety improvements.

The Columbia Street Waterfront neighborhood has had significant increases in housing, businesses, and schools over the past decade, which has led to more pedestrians and vehicular traffic. Additionally, changes to traffic patterns and traffic calming measures in adjacent neighborhoods have shifted more vehicles onto the already busy, two-way Columbia Street.

This intersection has been perilous for well over a decade and it still does not have any traffic calming measures despite the growth of the neighborhood. Hundreds of children who live in this community cross this intersection daily, as do even more residents and community members. The lack of safety measures puts pedestrians and drivers at risk of injury, and yesterday's incident underscores the urgent need for action to make this busy intersection safer.

Over the past decade, many community members have requested street safety upgrades at this intersection, but the NYC Department of Transportation has denied multiple requests to improve safety at this intersection, including to install a multi-way stop sign at this intersection and to assess if a traffic light is warranted.

We are calling on all elected officials who represent this area and Community Board 6 to urge NYC DOT to prioritize and install safety improvements at the intersection of Columbia Street and President Street as soon as possible, beginning with the most easily and immediately actionable improvements listed below:

• High-visibility, marked crosswalks across Columbia Street, which signals to drivers that they should anticipate pedestrians crossing the street. This is a simple, low-cost, and easily-implemented improvement.
• Daylighting (prohibiting parking near corners) on the corners of Columbia Street to improve sightlines, pedestrian and vehicle visibility for cars on Columbia Street approaching the intersection, and both pedestrian and driver safety.
• Signage to slow vehicular traffic on Columbia Street -- pedestrian warning signage as part of an enhanced crosswalk or, if warranted, multi-way stop signs -- that will signal drivers to slow down, enable drivers to more easily see pedestrians at the intersection, and give pedestrians time to cross.

We understand that traffic signal studies and any subsequent installation of a signal will take many months, if not longer. Therefore, we are requesting that these simpler improvements be undertaken as soon as possible to ensure the safety of children and all pedestrians in our neighborhood. 

If you live, work, or attend school in – or have any other connection to – this neighborhood, please sign and share this petition widely so that our elected officials and the NYC Department of Transportation know that so many community members are demanding these long-overdue safety improvements. A letter outlining these concerns that includes a link to this petition has been sent to local elected officials and the NYC Department of Transportation, and your support of this petition is critical for spurring them to action.

Thank you for lending your voice to help make the Columbia Street Waterfront neighborhood safer for everyone.