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City to Narrow Greenwich Street Crosswalk to Make It Safer
For years, Tribeca residents have been calling on transportation officials to make the intersection of Duane and Greenwich Streets a safer place to cross. This summer, the city’s Department of Transportation [DOT] announced that it was indeed planning to implement traffic-calming measures at the intersection, but not the kind the residents have been asking for. DOT Manhattan Borough Commissioner Luis Sanchez said his agency plans to install a pair of concrete “bulb-outs” on the southeast and southwest corners of Duane and Greenwich Streets that would narrow the crossing from 40 to 28 feet. Sanchez said the plan would give pedestrians a better view of oncoming traffic, which is often blocked by parked trucks and dumpsters. Craig Chin, a spokesman for the DOT, said negotiations with utility companies have prevented the department from setting an installation date for the concrete bulb-outs. Chin said the DOT plans to put in temporary asphalt bulb-outs in the near future. “That also has to be worked out with the utility companies,” Chin said. “We’re hoping to get something temporary in there soon.” In interviews near the intersection late last month, most people said that nothing short of a traffic light, or at least a stop sign, would make much difference. “I guess anything [the DOT] can do will help, but it would just seem that a traffic light would be the most logical fix,” said Greenwich Street resident Maria Zerafa, adding that she routinely instructs her preschool-aged son on the dangers of the intersection. “I tell [him] to hold on to the stroller and make sure [he] makes eye contact with the drivers while we’re crossing,” she said. “I have yet to see one car stop for anyone in that crosswalk.” Harrison Street resident Mia Gowdy agreed. “I think it has to be a light,” she said, “given that [Washington Market Park] is right here, and there are so many children in the neighborhood.”
The department also posted truck-loading regulations for the east side of Greenwich Street between Duane and Jay, hoping to encourage more parking on the east side of the street. Neither measure appears to have made residents feel safer. “It’s totally dangerous,” said Hudson Street resident Christine Brogan, who often crosses the intersection with her toddler son. “Drivers speed up through the intersection so they can catch the light at Chambers Street.” Friends of Washington Market Park took up the fight for a light more than two years ago. In March, the group’s president, Nelle Fortenberry, sent a letter to DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, demanding that the department reverse its decision not to install a traffic light. She called the DOT’s strict adherence to the federal guidelines a “compromise [of] the safety of hundreds of children and seniors.” In her written response to Fortenberry, Sadik-Khan backed her department’s decision. At least five accidents that could have been prevented by a traffic light or stop sign would need to occur before the city would install one of the devices, she said. “That’s what it’s going to take, someone getting killed,” said Andre Greaves, a 34-year resident of 310 Greenwich St. “I really believe that.” One Tribeca mother, Nomi Leidner, said she liked the idea of the bulb-outs, adding that they might be more of an aesthetic fit for the neighborhood than a traffic light. “It has more of a neighborly feel to it,” she said. “It isn’t as ‘trafficky’ as a stop light would be.” Because traffic conditions may change with the recent opening of Whole Foods on Greenwich Street, Sanchez said, the DOT will continue to study the intersection.
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