By Emily Baer
Upper West Siders demanded action on Thursday night to make the blocks around West 96th street and Broadway safer following the deaths of three pedestrians in a two-block radius since the start of the year.
Residents of the UWS gathered Thursday evening at the Goddard Riverside Community Center to hear the Department of Transportation’s proposed plan to change traffic patterns on West 96th and Broadway intersection. NYPD officials, local politicians and at least 100 residents showed up. Inspector Barry asked for a moment of silence to honor the victims of recent crashes.
Part of the Department of Transportation’s proposed plan is to increase the length of walk signals for pedestrians so they aren’t rushed when crossing. Changes to the turn signals for vehicles turning left are also part of the proposal, as well as adding a cross walk from median to median. Another suggested change is to lengthen the amber signal (aka yellow light). There was a strong negative reaction to this, as many people felt that allowing more time will just increase the speed of traffic, because cars will try to speed up to avoid getting stuck at the red light, thus endangering more pedestrians.
Residents brought up the possibility of installing red light camera in the intersection (which may help slow down traffic). A DOT rep responded that the city is only allowed a certain number of these cameras and there were no more to use. The crowd booed to this and said there is no other intersection in NYC with this type of problem. There is a legitimate need for cameras. Several people agreed that a 4-way simultaneous stop signal would increase the length of the red signal to cars and to pedestrians more time to safely cross all points of the intersection.
The DOT estimates it will take 2 to 4 weeks to make these changes. They will hopefully be complete by March.
Dr. Barron Lerner (right), the maternal uncle of Cooper Stock, the nine-year-old boy killed on 97th street and West End Avenue on Jan. 10, read a statement prepared by Cooper’s family. The family hopes that local politics won’t get in the way of making this area safer for all and said that the focus needs to be on reckless and distracted drivers, not pedestrians or bike riders. The family was particularly upset that in 2008 and 2010 there was a proposed plan brought up by community activists to make the area safer, but it was ignored. (Update: Gothamist has video of Dr. Lerner’s speech and we’ve posted it below)
Another speaker said he was impressed by the city’s initial response. Barry Zucker, who resides at 97th street and West End, said that the DOT’s proposal was much better than he had expected.
The consensus opinion among crowd members appeared to be that West End Avenue, Broadway, West 96th and 97th streets must be addressed as a whole and that any changes will impact the flow of traffic of all streets.
Read the DOT’s plan here.
Photos by Emily Baer.
The statement from Dr Lerner that the focus needs to be on reckless and distracted drivers, not pedestrians or bike riders could not be more shortsighted and wrong. Pedestrians deciding that the cross walk signals do not apply to them is a MAJOR part of the problem and any changes that don’t include some way to “entice” pedestrians not to cross when they don’t have the walk sign is a half measure doomed to fail.
Fix the root cause of the problems with both drivers **and** pedestrians or a year or two from now we’ll all be back dealing with similar problems.
The mess we have today cost $90 million dollars to create. The siting of the new station entrance should have been between 94th and 95th streets. The proposed low cost solutions will probably not have much affect. Solutions that target drivers and pedestrians without prejudice are needed.
1. No turns on 96th street during the day.
2. Channel pedestrian use, sidewalk fences where pedestrians might cross illegally.
3. Widen the crosswalk where possible or needed.
4. Rumble strips to make drivers aware of changing street conditions between 95th and 97th Streets.
5. Stress rule enforcement and fines for both pedestrians and drivers.
6. No parking on Broadway or adjacent streets during the day.
7. Close the 96th Street station entrance, force entry at 95th street only.
It won’t be liked but drastic measures might be needed to fix the problems.
the root of the problem is the shortsightedness of the MTA (and/or the City) to not create subway entrances/exits on the corners of 96th and broadway. having pedestrians cross a major thorofare TWICE to get to the subway entrance I can only assume is a very large part of the problem.
But it’s soooo simple: Walk / Don’t Walk.
West 71st and Broadway sucks too near the McDonalds. So does the crossing by the Apple Bank to the subway at West 73rd. Cars and cabs continually drive across West 74th near that wine shop next to the Beacon Theater when they clearly don’t have the right of way. Some day a Fairway shopper or one of these tourists is going to go flying up in the air.
Sean –
I agree with you on your comments about 71st & Broadway. I am a pedestrian, not a driver, and I think that this corner is an example of egregious pedestrian behavior in terms of ignoring the do not walk sign. The lights at that corner need to be synched with others as pedestrian behavior is not going change, they do not pay attention to the direction the cars are coming from when the light changes.
John, NYC Issues and hb all make good points – bit I disagree with Sean on one point – the intersection of Broadway and 74th Street is not all that dangerous. It’s very lightly travelled by both pedestrians and cars. I’m there in a car twice a day and there is really no problem. Well, that’s not entirely true. The problem comes from pedestrians who watch the countdown and even though the “Don’t Walk” signs are flashing, decide they can make it. And this is not exclusive to 74th and Broadway. Sure cars must yield to pedestrians – and most of them do (in this particular area, the police have been hard on the job ticketing drivers who fail to yield to pedestrains)…but I’ve sat at red lights and watched more than one little old lady look at the “Don’t Walk” sign and decide to give it a go, shopping cart and all. So as we distribute blame, we all share some.
The cars go through the light toward the east side of Broadway at West 74th when the light is clearly red and the little figure is white in the crosswalk. The cars cross from between the Broadway malls at this spot. It has been going on forever. They ever turn off from Broadway going south to do this. Basically traffic flow is a mess on the UWS and in most of the city. These streets were not designed for suburban traffic.
Yesterday at 8:45am-rush hour (1/30) there was an enormous white grocery delivery truck parked on Broadway (I assume for Gristedes) near the southwest corner. The truck stretched 1/4 of the block-the loading deck in back was extended into the crosswalk blocking it. No driver was visible and there was no unloading occurring at the time. Why would this truck be permitted to block the intersection here?
I live on 96th and commute through that subway stop most weekdays. The blame has to be ~90% pedestrians. Just tonight a woman walked right into the left turn lane while six or seven cars waited for the light. Of course, two NYPD yellow jackets were across the street talking to each other. A few days ago I saw someone cross in the middle of the street…and walk right past another yellow jacket. I don’t believe putting cops there is the answer, but their presence at the moment is clearly just for show. I don’t know how you control pedestrians, but I’ve driven in this city, I’ve ridden a bike in this city and I mostly walk in this city. The scourge of this intersection is the typical pedestrian.
The biggest problem isn’t pedestrians or drivers, it’s the idiocy of squeezing hundreds of people on a tiny concrete slab in the middle of multiple lanes of two way traffic. The intersection at 72nd and Broadway isn’t as pronounced of a problem simply because it’s actually a wide plaza with plenty of room to wait for the ‘walk’ signal.
MTA made a huge design mistake and they are trying to make it the pedestrians fault.
The only surprising thing about this whole situation is that it took this long for deaths to occur. The place has been a deathtrap waiting to happen since the minute it was reopened a couple years ago.
The “no left turn” from 96th St. west onto Broadway south will just drive all the traffic onto West End Ave south, right in front of the elementary school, and on a residential street. Then the vehicles will take another left onto 95th St. east to get back onto Broadway, exacerbating the existing problems 95th St. already has as a result of the Henry Hudson parkway exit. Bad bad bad idea!!!
I don’t think it’s helpful to blame pedestrians or drivers for bad traffic engineering. The solution is to re-engineer the flow of cars and people through the intersections along 96th and 97th. I won’t repost the specifics that I already posted elsewhere, but overall here are my suggestions:
-Eliminate parking on 97th from Columbus to West End
-Eliminate parking on 96th from Amsterdam to the entrance of the West Side Hwy.
-Eliminate parking on southbound WEA from 97th to 96th
-Add delayed greens to extend crossing time
-Add turning lanes with signals on 97th at West End and on West End southbound at 96th
As someone who walks, rides, and sometimes drives along these streets and have done so for decades, I’m very aware of the progressive narrowing of 97th St. from CPW to Broadway which creates a pressurized funnel during busy times. Drivers become desperate to get through the light at Broadway and again on West End. Similarly, there’s just too much traffic heading west on 96th St. from Amsterdam to the West Side Hwy so that this flow backs up, too. The backed up traffic makes drivers desperate to to get through the lights at Bway and WEA. Eliminating parking and adding turning lanes with signals would alleviate much of this problem while making it safer to cross the streets without resorting to penalizing pedestrians with cattle fences or drivers with more congestion. I’d also eliminate all illegal or double-parking on those streets by having double fines and super strict enforcement.
The subway entrances on the southwest and southeast
sides of Broadway and 96th Street need to be restored.
John Gibson is 100% correct. Thank you John.
Charlesgrodin is 1000% correct!!
Agree with nycissues with the exception of closing 96th St. entrance. What a mess that would create at 95th St entrance. It’s not capable of handling all of that additional traffic.