Residents give Bronx cheer to new Broadway traffic plan

Changes are coming to Broadway — just not as much as city transportation officials had hoped.

More than 100 people packed a social room at Park Gardens Rehabilitation and Nursing Center last Thursday over what should happen to the stretch of Broadway just outside the front doors. In the end, Community Board 8’s traffic and transportation committee voted to restripe parts of Broadway to narrow intersections, add parking spaces, and even explore the possibility of a parking overhaul from the current parallel spots to angled.

The resolution, introduced by CB8 chair Daniel Padernacht, is quite different from what city transportation department officials proposed — a plan that would narrow travel and parking lanes, add bicycle lanes, and shift parking in order to better align traffic lanes on the road. 

“I think there are parts of the plan that are good, and other parts of that plan which I think needs to be studied more,” Padernacht said. “The community has come out, and the community has spoken. And that is what we do here on the board, we listen.”

Transportation officials wanted to overhaul Broadway between West 242nd Street and the Westchester County line as a way to slow traffic, and to create what they said was a much safer way for pedestrians to cross Broadway to Van Cortlandt Park on the east side of the road. 

A barrier, not a gateway

“Broadway acts more as a barrier to the park than a gateway to the park,” said Patrick Kennedy, a project manager in the transportation department. “There are a lot of vulnerable populations along Broadway: several schools and numerous senior housing development that exist, are being planned, or are being made now. So we have the very young and the very old … and they have to cross the street.”

One parent that struggles to get from one side to the other on many days is Eben Weiss, who lives on Cayuga Avenue just a block from Broadway. Whenever he takes his two young children to Vannie, he says he’s literally taking his life into his own hands.

“The light changes, and six or seven cars whiz through the red light at high speeds,” Weiss said. “As soon as you do that, the ‘don’t walk’ sign starts blinking. I have to throw my two-year-old under my arm and run, or take refuge on the dilapidated island in the middle of Broadway.”

Tara McMaster, who represented the Broadway Community Alliance at the meeting, said safe pedestrian crossing is an issue on the road, but the transportation department’s plan doesn’t address it the way it should.

‘Safe crossings, not bikes’

“We need safe crossings, not protected bike lanes,” McMaster said. “According to the police reports, there are 12 pedestrian fatalities involved jaywalking by the pedestrians. We urge the study of more traffic lights so that motorists won’t exceed 25 mph. It has been successful in other parts of the city.”

Right now, cars on that stretch of Broadway hit close to 50 mph, Kennedy said, for a road that has a speed cap at 30 mph.

Last year, the transportation department installed two signalized crossings at West 246th Street and at the Tortoise and Hare Statue Park entrance. McMaster and others said without knowing how much of an effect those crossings will have on pedestrian traffic accidents, making other changes at the scale the city wants to is premature.

Allen Dillon, owner of Parkview Sports Center at Broadway and West 242nd, told the committee that nearly all of the 28 businesses along that stretch signed a petition opposing the transportation department’s plan. 

“It will crush small businesses, many of them who are struggling to stay alive,” Dillon said. “We can’t afford to lose anyone, and it seems ludicrous to narrow Broadway.”

Councilman Andrew Cohen, a vocal proponent of the transportation department plan, implored the CB8 committee to take some kind of action, because he feared South Yonkers and some of its traffic issues will continue to creep into North Riverdale. He told The Riverdale Press after the meeting he was disappointed in how it all turned out.

“I think the DOT put a lot of work into the plan, and I don’t know, I hope that the resolution of the community board leads to something productive,” Cohen said. “I can’t say I’m overly optimistic about that. I don’t think it’s fair to say there was an overwhelming consensus. 

“There are a lot of problems on Broadway, and people need to come together.”

The CB8 committee also recommended more study into how traffic lights can affect speed on Broadway, either by lengthening the time of red lights, or even adding more traffic lights along the stretch. 

It also wants more enforcement of illegal parking in the Broadway corridor, as well as moving a bus stop near Manhattan College Parkway and West 242nd to a location further north to help alleviate some traffic problems there.

The full CB8 board would still have to approve the resolution in its June 12 meeting. But even after that, any changes to the Broadway corridor could be months — if not years — away.

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz said he listened to the more than 30 people who stood up to talk about the traffic project, but there was one group that wasn’t represented.

“I kind of wanted to be against this thing,” Dinowitz said. “But the more I read about it, the more I thought about it, the bottom line for me is that people have died. People have died on Broadway because of the conditions that exist there now. 

“The people who died aren’t here tonight to speak about it. And if we can take steps to make improvements, we should do that.”