An 8-foot-by-6-foot telephone booth on the northwest corner of 45th Street and Ninth Avenue may have contributed to the deaths of two pedestrians.

Community Board 4 approved a letter yesterday requesting that the commissioner of the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications immediately remove the booth, which it describes as a “visual barrier.”

A pedestrian, Nina Petrow, had right of way in a marked crosswalk when she was killed February 23 by an Academy bus that came down Ninth Avenue and turned right onto 45th Street. A spokesman for Academy declined to comment.

The letter also refers to Randolph Walker, who was similarly killed in May 2000 by a double-decker New York Apple Tours bus.

A co-chairwoman of the City Council’s Transportation Committee, Christine Berthet, said it was a good precaution to remove city street furniture that risks reducing sight lines. She also said the phone booths, which carry advertisements, are “really large compared to the service they provide.”

A spokesman for DoITT declined to comment on the letter, saying the department had not yet received it, but said if and when it receives the letter, the department would “fully and expeditiously investigate its claims and take action as appropriate, as we do for all complaints.”

The letter, which has yet to be sent, expresses concern that “the super sized, double phone booth/advertising edifice” may block not only the backward or side glance of a pedestrian, but also could impede the view of a driver making the right-hand turn.

The letter says there are seven other outdoor phones within 50 feet of the corner. The letter declares, “Why nine public phones were placed in such close proximity to each other is incomprehensible to this Board.” The letter described the intersection as dangerous and increasingly congested.

The chairman of Community Board 4, J. Lee Compton, told The New York Sun that after two deaths in that crosswalk, “We are looking for contributing factors that we can eliminate.”