Community Board 1 (CB1) is pushing for a study by the City’s Department of Transportation (DOT) of traffic at the intersection in northern Battery Park City, as a preliminary step toward having traffic control measures (such as a stop sign or traffic light) installed there.
“We’re asking for a traffic control study at the intersection of River Terrace and Warren Street,” explained Tammy Meltzer, who chairs CB1’s Battery Park City Committee, at a meeting of the Board on October 23. “The situation is that a traffic light was installed a year or two ago at North End Avenue and Warren Street. And drivers who are looking to zip through the area know there are no traffic controls along River Terrace, going north or south.”
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CB1’s Battery Park City Committee chair, Tammy Meltzer: “Drivers who are looking to zip through the area know there are no traffic controls along River Terrace, going north or south.”
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Citing the dangers created by drivers with an opportunity and incentive to speed, Ms. Meltzer noted that, “this is just one block away from three schools — Stuyvesant High School, P.S. 89, and I.S. 289,” which account for more than 4,000 students between them.
“There is also a safety issue with children and parents crossing River Terrace to get to Rockefeller Park, which regularly hosts runs and other events” she added. Ms. Meltzer noted that this concern is compounded, “by the fact that vehicles with law enforcement placards park illegally along the entire length of River Terrace each day.” This makes the street narrower and reduces the line or sight and margin of error for drivers speeding along the curved roadway. “It also leads to parents and kids trying to cross the street by stepping out from between illegally parked cars,” she said.
“River Terrace was configured without any traffic controls by the City’s Department of Transportation [DOT] 11 years ago,” she noted. “This was by design, but the situation has changed quite a bit since then.” This was a reference to the fact that the DOT noticed, in the mid-2000s, that the Battery Park City Authority had, a decade earlier, installed stop signs along River Terrace as a safety precaution, and demanded that these be removed. This was part of a jurisdictional dispute, in which the DOT insisted that it was the only agency with legal authority to place stop signs on any public street, throughout the five boroughs of New York City.
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The intersection of Warren Street and River Terrace, where speeding cars bear down on students going to and from three nearby schools, as well as parents and children headed for Rockefeller Park.
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A resolution enacted by CB1 at the October 23 meeting notes that, “various members of the Battery Park City Community made Community Board 1 aware of endemic safety issues associated with the safe crossing of the intersection of River Terrace and Warren Street,” and that, “the current intersection does not have any traffic controls to force motorists to cede the right-of-way to pedestrians who are crossing River Terrace to enter the park, nor are there any controls to protect pedestrians who are crossing Warren Street from motorists who are turning onto Warren Street.”
The resolution calls upon DOT to, “study additional forms of ‘traffic calming’ measure that could be implemented to improve safety along the River Terrace corridor, which sees a heavy number of vulnerable pedestrian users such as children and the elderly.” The same measure notes that, “CB1 believes that a traffic control device as well as facilities for safe pedestrian crossings are necessary and requests that DOT pursue all necessary studies collection of data to ascertain the appropriate measures.”
