Proposed changes to West 70th Street and West End Avenue.

Last week, the city’s Department of Transportation unveiled the long-awaited results of a comprehensive traffic study of the Upper West Side. Manhattan Borough Commissioner Margaret Forgione presented the DOT’s data and plans to the community at a forum hosted by City Council Member Gale Brewer and Community Board 7, who initially pushed for the study.

The DOT first began collecting data on the Upper West Side in 2006. The study aimed to primarily address pedestrian safety, double parking, congestion, enforcement and truck traffic. Within the study area (from West 55th to 86th streets, between Central Park West and the Henry Hudson Parkway), the DOT conducted pedestrian counts at 26 locations and manual turning movement counts at 42 locations, looked at automatic traffic recording information for 18 spots, clocked travel speeds along 12 corridors, analyzed accident data for a four-year period and conducted a parking survey. The end result is a slew of recommendations, some simple and some more complex, to improve both traffic flow and safety on the Upper West Side.

Many of the DOT’s recommendations focus on ways to slow traffic at intersections and allow pedestrians more time to cross the street at some notoriously dangerous spots in the neighborhood. At the intersection by P.S. 199, where the DOT earlier had installed two speed humps at the adamant request of parents concerned about their children crossing the street to get to school, the new proposal suggests doing even more to calm traffic at West 70th Street and West End Avenue. The plan would create three neckdowns on corners of the intersection, as well as putting striped channeling to visually narrow the road and slow vehicles before they approach.

“What we’d want to do is pick the items that have been the most concern to the community board, and also the items that are fairly easy to implement, and prioritize those at the transportation committee, so that we can try to have some quick successes,” Forgione said after the meeting.

The DOT will be collecting feedback on their report, and residents can write to DOT as well as to Community Board 7 to share their thoughts and weigh in on what the first priorities should be as far as making changes based on the study. Some things, like those that require only a day’s work and some paint, can be done right away.

Other proposals, like ones that involve changing traffic lanes, moving bus stops, installing curb extensions and creating pedestrian medians, will take more time and are not necessarily going to happen automatically. Some residents at the meeting expressed dismay over the suggestions that eliminate or limit parking spaces, for example, and others weren’t convinced that changing traffic patterns would have the desired effects.

“The more complex the solution, sometimes you need to be a little more deliberative about making a move, but there are some things in this study that I think you heard tonight that everybody agrees are both a priority and readily doable,” said Mark Diller, chair of Community Board 7. He said that he hopes to usher through some of the easiest and least controversial measures swiftly, but knows that other measures will require more time and feedback.

Council Member Brewer said that she’s happy that the community can move forward with an abundance of data to back up their concerns.

“To the credit of DOT, they now have some facts—who’s crossing, where the traffic issues are—and that was the first step,” Brewer said. “This has been a really collaborative process; this is like the sixth or seventh meeting I’ve been to on this process, so this is not done in isolation.”

The full presentation is available online at www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/about/westside.shtml.

An intersection in Brooklyn’s Bensonhurst neighborhood had the highest in the city, with nine accidents, all with injured victims.

Senior pedestrian accidents are mostly caused by insufficient crossing time and cars failing to yield when making turns.

Other West Side intersections that made the list include West 96th Street and Columbus Avenue, West 66th Street and Broadway, West 66th Street and Columbus Avenue, and West 73rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue.

“Traffic fatalities reached a historic low last year, but we will continue to do everything we can to tailor our streets to protect our most vulnerable populations,” said Janette Sadik-Khan, commissioner of the Department of Transportation, in a statement.

The department’s Safe Streets for Seniors initiative for the Upper West Side was presented at Community Board 7’s April 13 meeting. The program is studying possible locations for pedestrian islands, more time to cross the street and curb extensions.

Parents of children who attend schools around West 96th Street say they have tried to make these blocks safer. They have gone to community board meetings and reached out to elected officials with their complaints and recommendations. But nothing has improved. So now the unsatisfied parents and school administrators have joined with a local pedestrian advocacy group to detail the traffic problems. Eight schools are now working with the group Upper West Side Street Renaissance on the “Corridor 96 Project.”

The busy intersection of West 96th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. Photo by Andrew Schwartz

Tila Duhaime, one of the project’s organizers, said 14 volunteers stood on the corners tallying infractions from car drivers. There was plenty of red-light running and failing to yield to pedestrians while making a turn, she said.

“There is that behavior in a lot of places in the Upper West Side, but we haven’t recognized how dramatically bad it is,” Duhaime said. “There was more aggressive driving and instances of aggressive driving on this corridor.”

Like other pedestrian safety initiatives, this one aims to protect those most vulnerable to aggressive driving: seniors and school children.

Julie Margolies, a parent of three with two children at the Studio School on West 95th Street, said pedestrian safety in the area has been a consistent problem.

“I think individuals have tried over the years—individual schools, individual parents—to be heard on this issue,” Margolies said. “It’s great that schools are getting involved because they have teams of parents behind them. Not everyone knows the Byzantine system of local city government.”

The recommendations will eventually be presented to the Department of Transportation after administrators from partner schools and community board members add their ideas as well. Many of the pedestrian safety measures recommended will be relatively simple and low-cost, Duhaime said. Some of the changes the group is seeking include signals that let pedestrians cross the street before cars can turn into the lane, and removing parking spots close to intersections so pedestrians can see around corners.

Crossing guards help, said Amy Winarsky, a parent of a child at P.S. 75, on West End Avenue and West 96th Street. But children who stay after school or who go to weekend events are at risk.

“It’s the children that are responsible for crossing safely when in fact it should be the adults responsible for driving safely,” Winarsky said. “Unless [the city builds] in systems that govern the cars, they’re at risk.”