A man in his forties was struck and killed by an MTA bus early Thursday morning at an intersection in Ridgewood, Queens. The death underscores the difficulty of achieving Mayor Bill de Blasio's Vision Zero program, which seeks to eliminate traffic fatalities in New York City.

Edgar Torres was walking to his 6 a.m. dialysis appointment at Wyckoff Medical Center. At 5 a.m., he reached the intersection of Myrtle Avenue, Wyckoff Avenue, and Palmetto Street. Witness Jose Velez said Torres had the light and was in the crosswalk when the crash occurred. "He was already halfway through the intersection when the bus came turning and boom!," Velez said of the collision. "I seen the body there laying."

Torres died steps away from where 23-year-old Ella Bandes was struck and killed by a bus in January of last year. The city Department of Transportation has added safety improvements to the area, such as shorter crossings, better lighting and fewer turns for some vehicles.

Six bus routes meet at the intersection, and five of them require drivers to turn around and restart their route in the opposite direction. Buses are constantly crossing or turning into and out of a tricky expanse of asphalt where five major roads converge beneath an elevated subway track. Even with the safety improvements, near-misses are commonplace.

A DOT spokesman would not say whether department planners, when redesigning the intersection, considered requesting changes to some of the bus routes or reducing the number of turns that buses make there. "We’ll review this and previous crashes, and discuss appropriate actions with New York City Transit," the spokesman said.

Edgar Torres was the sixth pedestrian to be struck and killed by a bus in New York this year. Last year, eight pedestrians died in bus crashes.