Text and photos by Daniel Katzive
An MTA bus and a construction vehicle collided on Amsterdam Avenue this morning, sending 13 riders to the hospital, with one person refusing medical attention, according to fire and police officials. The accident, involving an uptown M11 bus, occurred at around 11:20 a.m. between 81st and 82nd Streets.
According to the FDNY, none of the injuries reported at the scene were life threatening. Victims were transported to Mount Sinai Hospital and to Mount Sinai Morningside (St. Luke’s).
At least six ambulances responded to the accident. Medics could be seen evaluating passengers, who remained on the bus, and then escorting them to ambulances.
According to the NYPD, both vehicles were northbound on Amsterdam Avenue. The flatbed construction vehicle is believed to have sideswiped the bus, police said. Drivers of both vehicles were among the injured.
The driver’s side window of the bus was shattered and the bus’s side view mirror was lying on the roadway. Investigators could be seen examining the right rear corner of a construction truck parked nearby, though there was no obvious visible damage.
The construction company identified on the truck’s door was not immediately able to provide information on the incident, but we will update this article if they do.
Update, August 10, 5:30 p.m.:
To receive our free email newsletter, click here.
We need dedicated bus lanes.
Bus lanes end up being parking lots for NYPD vehicles. Where have you seen a long stretch of bus lanes with nobody parking in them?
I have seen unimpeded bus lanes on both 5th and Madison Avenues. Even the 14th Street bus lane is usually free and clear.
NYPD parking was taken over by dining shacks.
Umm… have you ever looked at the west side of Columbus between 81 and 82? They double park around the Milling Room shack closing off an entire lane of Columbus.
It seems that bike lanes are more important lately.
At least on Columbus, with the bike lane, parking, and dining sheds, there can’t be room for a bus lane. On Fifth Ave there are not so many obstructions.
With a dedicated bus lane, a bike lane, parking/dining lane, and the double parked UPS lane we’d be down to 1 for regular traffic. Its just a fact that when the city streets were built life and traffic were different. We can’t make the streets wider and we can’t keep repurposing lanes. Perhaps we should do away with the parking/dining lanes.
Sorry, I love the outdoor dining. I could live without electric bikes. However, none of these things were involved in the accident. Facts Matter. It involved ONLY a bus and a truck. The truck should not have swerved, but instead, just slowed down, allowed the car to zoom away, and stayed in its own lane.
What facts do you thibk people have wrong? Nobody claimed a dining shed or eBike was involved in the accident. These comments stem from the comment by Josh P that we need dedicated bus lanes.
Right, when the city streets were built, we used horse and buggies, or just horses. Or walked. Or rode bicycles. The stage coach was as close to a bus as we had. No cars either.
Cars and other motor vehicles are the natural evolution from horse drawn vehicles. There used to be horse drawn streetcars, horse drawn trucks among other horse drawn vehicles. Cars were once known as horseless carriages.
As such electric bicycles, motorcycles, and mopeds are the natural evolution of bicycles, which had been in use in NYC since the 1860’s.
By the time lawsuits are filed there will have been 100 injured…
How’s the bus driver? Is the bus driver okay? Seems they’d gotten the brunt of it! How scary.
Bus drivers on the #7 and #11 ought to get hazard pay, Amsterdam between 72nd and 86th is an accident waiting to happen — and now it has. The drivers have to thread their vehicles between construction sites, dining sheds and double-parked trucks to get into and out of stops. Not to mention dealing with passenger pile-ons when the schools let out. And there’s no mercy to be had from the huge cargo trucks that treat Amsterdam like a major highway where only they have the right of way. I hope the injuries prove to be minor.
These couple of blocks have been / are becoming even more of an abomination. Road or ConEd work going on for as long as I can remember. What in the world they’re digging up on those two corners for what must be 5 years now is beyond me. It’s like they’re building Taj Mahal under there. Add to it the large barely used dining sheds blocking visibility, the high-traffic left turn from W79, the parked delivery trucks, the bus stop near 80th, the complete lack of any traffic regulation, etc. etc. – and it’s a recipe for disaster.
The city refuses to regulate e-vehicles including Citibikes who wiz in and out of traffic hardly staying within the bike lanes. And the City Council just went ahead and voted to continue the restaurant sheds at the bequest of the restaurant lobby despite how the sheds cut down the width of the streets and remove necessary parking; despite the incredible explosion of rats and despite the fact that the majority of residents want the sheds to go away! It appears to everyone I speak to that the Mayor and City Council are acting on behalf of wealthy lobbyists at the expense of the citizens and in opposition to what they need to live safely on these streets.
Just because you and your friend group are in agreement about the sheds going away does not mean that the majority of residents want them gone. They are incredibly popular, evidenced by the amount of people who use them. I won’t say that the majority of people feel one way or the other because I couldn’t possibly know. I do know that the majority of the bubble that surrounds me is very supportive of them. But please refrain from thinking that you speak for the majority, just as I am refraining from doing the same thing.
Sorry Josh-I chair a community organization and belong to 2 more. I think I have a pretty good idea what the majority think about restaurant sheds. Many of them are second restaurants enclosed on 4 sides with windows- less ventilation than sitting inside. Great for the restaurants though! They get free space nearly doubling in some cases what their inside space is. Nice deal the city bestows by taking away public streets and sidewalks.
Who says your organizations are representative of the majority of the neighborhood? Seems obvious to me that more restaurant space benefits NYC residents more than the 1-2 parking spots (often occupied by NJ/CT cars) that would replace sheds.
The NJ/CT car occupants spend money in NY. Without affordable places to park, they won’t come. This fixation on cars with out-of-state plates is sophomoric.
Most of those you see with NJ plates work here or have other significant business here and live in an area with a cumbersome commute. Manhattanites who can afford to pay top dollar to live in a neighborhood like the UWS (which likely costs more per square foot than housing NJ) are fine with NJ residents paying taxes to NY (NJ gives a credit for taxes paid to NY), forcing them to use more limited transit options when there’s little gain for NJ to improve transit (even if the resources to do so are there) only to lose income tax paying residents money to NY. While the UWS doesn’t have the burden of housing people who currently live in NJ and can keep 71% of the neighborhood as a historic district. I guess certain things are easy to say as a UWS resident.
Josh
Among other things, the shacks certainly impact on people who live above or nearby.
Perhaps you are fortunate to live someplace that is not above one.
The majority likely sees sheds as a nice to have but not a must have.
City DOT actively promotes Citibike (instead of encouraging use of MTA bus and subway).
Also bicycle lobby supports restaurant shacks.
Second serious accident on this same stretch of Amsterdam in two weeks.
Maybe some *traffic enforcement* by the 20th precinct (82 b/t Amsterdam & Columbus) would be appropriate, or are they too busy playing on their phones?
This section is just a hot mess. Between the construction site and all their stuff, the restaurant sheds, ones that are used and ones that just add to the clutter, AND the quirk with 81st street traffic patterns where people unfamiliar with the traffic flow assume there might be something wrong with the lights. When will DOT review this and not just as an opportunity for more bike stations.
We have been waiting for this to happen. This section of the city has been bottle-necked by the addition of bike lanes, restaurant sheds, double parking, construction and deliveries. The emergency vehicles have been having a hard time coming through that the sirens are louder and much longer and can be heard all the way to the middle of the block. This is a case study to get our streets and roads back. How many more accidents do we need?
It’s time to eliminate on-street parking. and time for NYPD to start enforcing traffic laws instead of gathering in groups and either having a wonderful conversation or playing with their phones., including bike riders going the wrong way on one-way streets or even on the wrong side of Broadway and blowing through red lights. Jaywalkers should also be ticketed if they insist on wandering into the streat other than on crosswalks with the light. The only way our overcrowded streets can work if is we stop favoring cars and enforce the traffic laws for everyone.
All too true. And remember when pedestrians had the right of way?
Time for the NYPD to enforce anti- reckless driving laws, sounds like the car in this case, but perhaps the truck too.
And yes, I’ve seen City buses driven stupidly, but apparently that’s not the issue here.
Right, enforcing such laws is much harder than going after speeders and red-light runners with cameras. Not holding my breath.
Lane discipline matters, even at city street/avenue speeds.
Without a clue as to why the car supposedly switched lanes or what speed the truck was traveling, you made a reckless driving determination? Sometimes there are simply unavoidable accidents caused by other factors.
there are no such things as accidents man. ever.
I’ve noticed whenever there’s a vehicular accident it is rarely if ever an Upper West Side resident driver who is at fault.
Most often it’s commercial vehicles, too many if which are driven fast and loose perhaps at least partly because the vehicle doesn’t belong to the driver so there’s no personal financial risk in driving a little aggressively.
Witness the tragic death of the female bike rider on CPW recently. Commercial vehicle at fault.
My own car has been hit twice while parked in the past six months–once by a school bus and once by a huge truck trying to navigate a narrow side street at a reckless speed.
Meanwhile most CB7 anti-vehicle plans and moves punish mainly innocent local resident car owners who generally are not the problem.
UWS streets are most dangerous by far during work hours. Law enforcement could monitor Amsterdam Ave traffic more closely those hours.
The situation is also complicated by the increase in e-commerce, more inexperienced drivers hired to meet demands of delivery, that Amsterdam is basically the only way trucks can transit northbound, there are more school buses as a number of schools including special ed schools have opened and the presence of mopeds etc weaving around.
Commercial driving is difficult, stressful and dangerous.
There has been a construction storeground right on the corner of 82 and amsterdam. This has been causing cars and trucks to veer for several years.
There are also unused dining sheds right on that corner. I thought that was illegal.
Can your reporters please try to determine how the kitten was involved? While a woman was being loaded into the ambulance a man was assisting her while holding a very young kitten. Was the kitten on the bus? Was he or she injured in the accident? Thank you.
This is one of the most dangerous crosswalks on Amsterdam. Cars turn right too fast and “cut” the curve, pedestrians cross without looking (thinking it’s green for them) and finally construction equipment and materials have been stored there for months. Unfortunately, this was expected/