New York's Transportation Department says it's addressing some safety concerns on an accident-plagued stretch of Bronx highway where seven people died in a crash over the weekend.
Commissioner Joan McDonald says new concrete barriers will be installed on the outside travel lane on three Bronx River Parkway viaducts.
One of those viaducts is 60 feet over the Bronx Zoo, where an SUV landed on Sunday, killing seven members of a Bronx family.
Police said the SUV hit the median, crossed three lanes and hit a 2-foot-high concrete curb. The SUV then flew over a 4-foot guardrail and plummeted to the zoo below, killing the driver, 45-year-old Maria Gonzalez, and six passengers on impact.
Family and friends were grieving Wednesday at a makeshift memorial outside the Gonzalez family home in the Bronx.
"They're destroyed," nephew Andres Fulgencio said of Gonzalez's husband, Carlos Rodriguez, and their family. "They're devastated, very devastated. This is something that we cannot explain."
Crews started working Wednesday morning on signs and striping on the highway.
The family is grateful for the improvements, and Gonzalez said through Fulgencio they had "a bit of peace," but wish the changes had been implemented sooner.
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