A new speed bump on Claremont Avenue. Photo by Frank Wolf.
The city has installed speed bumps on Claremont Avenue near the spot where Columbia Dean Peter Awn was hit by a driver earlier this year, sustaining injuries that eventually led to his death. The safety changes come after residents and local institutions spent years advocating for changes there.
Claremont Avenue runs along the west side of the Barnard College campus and up to 125th Street. From 116th to 120th, the avenue has no crosswalks, stop signs, or speed limit signs. Awn was hit on Claremont and 116th.
For years, some residents pushed for more pedestrian safety measures, but the city did not add them. In March 2018, institutions including Columbia and Barnard signed onto a letter asking for new measures in particular at 119th and Claremont.
Frank Wolf, a resident of Claremont Avenue and former dean of Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies, wrote that the new speed bumps have made a “HUGE difference,” though he would like to see some more enhancements.
The issue that “has not been addressed is the situation at the junction of Claremont Avenue and 116th Street (the site of Peter Awn’s accident),” he wrote in an email to West Side Rag. “There is a triangle little park there — parking is allowed both on the west side and south side of that triangle. Those on the south side (116th Street) obscure a driver’s view of the crosswalk to the north of the triangle (where Peter was hit) if they are turning left. I see two possible solutions — eliminate that bit of parking and/or a No Left Turn proscription. This is really a traffic department issue.”
A Department of Transportation spokesperson wrote that no additional measures are currently planned for the avenue.
A stop sign for east bound traffic on 116th St. where crosswalk zebra stripes have been added, and from where traffic makes a left turn onto Claremont Avenue, would really help. The somewhat new zebra stripes running north-south across 116th St do nothing to protect pedestrians crossing 116th St. Cars are infinitely rude here, rarely coming to a full stop for pedestrians. A stop sign here would be no less needed than the one recently installed at Claremont and 119th St.
Good! Claremont was fertile ground for speeding. Glad to see sensible traffic-calming come to this area.
A couple of decades ago before the “Greenstreets” program set up that mini triangle park, NYC’s emergency medical service ambulances would often sit there between calls. (Unlike firefighters and their trucks, EMS crews don’t have the luxury of houses).
Drivers, well, some drivers, seeing that “official vehicle” slowed down. A bit.
Possibly after someone else gets killed the the DOT will consider taking up another measure to correct the visibility.
As a driver and a pedestrian (but not a bicyclist and never will be after having seen how other bicyclist behave) I believe that Speed bumps (or as they call them in Jamaica: sleeping policemen) are the most effective way of slowing down drivers. Every street that I have driven which has these impediments to speed are so much nicer to both pedestrians and also to other drivers. These are much more effective that all the Stop signs, the ridiculous white rubber posts to force drivers to take wider circles than necessary and traffic lights that have been placed at crosswalks/intersections which have cause another problem: speeding to catch the green light (see 113th and Riverside Drive).
Claremont should become a “shared street” with a 5 MPH speed limit. This would discourage all but local cars from using it. It could become an oasis between Broadway and Riverside and prevent any more tragedies.