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Incomplete crossings

12/17/2013

New Rochelle seems to have a penchant for three sided pedestrian crossings on four corner intersections. The more I walk my community the more of these I see. Why? I've looked at the Federal Highway Administration's guidelines and see some great information about improving pedestrian safety and nothing about three sided crossings. Is it a move by New Rochelle to save paint? How many pedestrians standing on corner A wanting to get to corner D are going to wait for the light to walk from A to B and then wait for the light to cross from B to C and then wait again to get from C to D? Not this one. I'm going to walk across the street from corner A to corner D even if it doesn't have a crosswalk. I know this increases my risk of getting run over, particularly in these days of texting drivers. I know a driver wanting to turn and having a green light and seeing no pedestrian crossing is going to figure s/he has right of way. Just as I also feel I should have the right to walk across the street without completing three sides of a square and waiting for traffic signals on all three sides.

What three sided pedestrian crossings create is confusion and conflict between transportation modes. I suspect there is a misguided belief that pedestrians will use the crossings and leave the unmarked side open for drivers turning, thereby keeping the traffic flowing. That faceless all important 'traffic'. Once more making it clear that in the land of engineers, a person in a car is more important than someone on foot. Enrique Penalosa would call this flawed democracy.

Please, can we have pedestrian crossings on all four sides?

And while we're at it, can we do something about improving sight lines for drivers so they don't consistently stop across pedestrian crossings in order to see what is coming when they want to legally turn while on a red light?

This intersection has traffic lights but no crossing lights for pedestrians, a curb cut with lawn and pedestrian crossing markings on three sides (two visible in the photo). If I was standing on the corner with the tree wanting to get to the house across the street am I really going to walk around three sides of the intersection to get there? I don't think so.

Here's a corner I was almost run over on. This intersection has one crossing marked (on the left of the photo) so even with the best will in the world crossing safely is not easy, especially if, like me, you are unwilling to wait for several light sequences to avoid turning traffic. I was crossing from left to right and drivers coming from the right and turning left made it very clear I should NOT have been on the street crossing where they were turning. Aggressive and territorial are the words that come to mind to describe their driving style.

The bike lane here is also incomplete. Now you see it.....and now you don't. It does not continue on the other side of the intersection. Would I bike here? Not a chance!

This is the same road as above but a couple of blocks along from the previous photo. This was taken very close to a shopping center where it would make good sense to have easy walking and cycling. But instead the cycle lane and the sidewalk both disappear. And yet there is road reserve up there in the distance that could be used. Did it get too hard? Did the traffic engineer's budget run out? Design like this seems to me to be more dangerous than doing nothing. Now pedestrians and cyclists are lured in to thinking they can safely get from here to there but nope. They are spat out into traffic.

This is a three sided intersection on Pelham Road. There are some good features here. Note the island on the left where pedestrians can safely wait if they get stranded in the middle of a very long intersection. Unfortunately there is no crosswalk in front of the bus by the bank and look ma, no pedestrian signals!

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It's snowing!

12/17/2013

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A thank you to whoever is in charge of clearing the snow by the train station. It was great to walk along Division Street and find the curb cuts cleared. So often the snow plows clear the roads by piling snow up along the curb making it hard for pedestrians to cross from block to block.

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"We humans are pedestrians"

12/9/2013

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" We humans are pedestrians. Just as fish need to swim or birds need to fly or deer need to run, we need to walk." a quote from a recent TED Talk by former Bogata Columbia mayor Enrique Penalosa. 14 minutes of inspiration about democracy through equitable transportation choices.

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Canyon Lands of the I-95

12/6/2013

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"What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder...." Traffic engineers and God...there's a joke or three in there somewhere. It seems, at least historically, that traffic engineers are experts at tearing asunder - our communities and the very earth our communities are built upon. In New Rochelle one of these sunderings is the Interstate 95. It knifes it way across New Rochelle - east / west - and is particularly noticeable near the train station.

Walking around not only slows us down to see more but also hear more. And a lot of what we hear is traffic. And the worst of that traffic noise comes from highways like the I-95. Walking anywhere near the I-95 always makes me imagine the neighborhood I'm walking as it was before the engineers were inspired to sunder it. How many homes were removed? What did they look like? What were the gardens like? Were there parks? Stores? Businesses? How was the access? How did people mostly get around? Were there fights at City Hall over the highway? (I bet there were) Who was for and who was against? What did the debates sound like? Who gained, who lost? What is it like to live in this neighborhood now? Can we better mitigate the noise pollution and the scarring?

The I-95 is BIG. It runs from the Canadian border all the way to Miami, Florida and is regarded as one of the most significant highways in this vast country. The NY portion was completed in 1958 and, as noted above, runs right through New Rochelle. It has its own canyon right in front of the train station. New Rochelle also has the distinction of having the last north bound exits before the only toll plaza (at Larchmont) on the I-95 in the state of New York. There is some local muttering about what the placement of this toll does to traffic flows on our local streets but I haven't found any research on whether people really do get off the highway to avoid the toll and if they do, whether that means they stop and spend money in New Rochelle, or stay in their cars and simply clog up our streets? Anyone looking for a research project? What I find odd about this toll is that it is only on the highway itself and not on the exits. While the New Jersey Turnpike, which doubles as the I-95 for part of its length, has toll plazas on all the entries and exits, here in New York you don't pay a toll if you exit the highway and drive through New Rochelle.

The I-95 is cutting off what could have been, and was planned to be, an amazing public space. And the irony is that it runs smack in front of the train station and according to the American Public Transport Association (APTA) every person we can get off the I-95 and into our trains will reduce CO2 emissions by 4,800 pounds per year for a 20 mile round trip commute. "A 10% reduction in all greenhouse gases produced by a typical two-adult, two-car household". So....all those drivers on the I-95, how many of you are commuting and what can we do to get you out of your cars and onto trains?

One way is to make walking to and from the train station more enjoyable than driving and one option to do this is to bury the highway and turn the resulting open space into a town square. Early plans, from way before the I-95, included gardens in front of the station. Check out the images below for what was envisioned, what we have now and what the future could look like.

The drawing below was the plan. The train station is at the top and the park sits below (in front) of the station's main entrance. Imagine walking out of the train station after a day in an office in the city and walking through this garden on your way home. Or through a plaza with some places to sit, have a drink, a bite to eat, all while knowing you are within walking distance of home. What a great way to decompress, relax and move from work focus to home mode.
(Many thanks to Barbara Davis our city historian for the illustration).

Here's what we have now. The train station is on the right. The two small matching towers are the top of the parking building next to the train station. Cars can also be seen parked in front of the station building.

The 2002 photo below shows the northbound New England Thruway (I-95) at EXIT 16 (North Avenue) close to the train station. (Photo by Jim K. Georges.) This photo comes from NYC Roads a great site to read about the history of the I-95. Here in New Rochelle we may consider ourselves lucky. Unlike Larchmont next door, we did not lose our train station. And while in Larchmont the Interstate is covered over at the train station, the resulting space is not a green area but a car park for commuters.

And here is the Division Street entrance to the train station. Note the lack of pedestrian crossings.

Think for a moment about how we could transform this area by covering over the highway at the train station. We can create a tremendous public space, a town square. Here's a few examples of how it could look courtesy of Bing.

How different would it feel to come home to a space like this rather than battling with traffic and the noise of the interstate? What makes this idea even more appealing is that the train station sits very close to the original center of New Rochelle. A center that is no longer marked as a 'place'. We have the library green but no town square, no gathering place to mark the physical center of this historic Huguenot city currently celebrating its 325th anniversary.

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Don't be a 'zoner'

12/5/2013

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Black Friday Parking is an article from Strong Towns about the benefits of getting rid of parking minimums. I know I have talked about parking before but I am continually amazed when walking around New Rochelle at the ENORMOUS amount of space used for parking. It seems like every street has some tucked away paved over space devoted to off street surface parking. The Black Friday Parking article makes the excellent point that requiring commercial activities, and even residential developments, to fulfill parking minimum requirements is not just a waste of space but it decimates the tax base because municipalities have a much lower tax return on asphalt surface parking than they do on buildings. Reminder for all us planners - our job is to think and plan not auto zone.

And a plea on behalf of all us pedestrians. Echoing an article I read recently....give us eye candy! If we want people to walk then we need to make it interesting. Views that engage us, make us curious to explore, make us want to walk into and through areas because they are visually appealing. Not visually appalling which is the only way I can describe the acres of asphalt devoted to surface parking. Scroll down for one happily spotted alternative....

I believe that under this lawn is a parking garage. Helping reduce storm water runoff, reducing urban heat island effect, adding some green (even though I'm not a fan of mowed grass it sure beats asphalt!).... More of these these please.

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Author: Nina Arron

I am an enthusiastic pedestrian, urban planner, and project manager currently living in New Rochelle, New York. I am grateful to be living in a walkable city with affordable easily accessible public transport (both trains and buses). My appreciation became even greater after spending three years back in New Zealand where it was much harder to fit daily walking into my life in what is considered one of the great natural, green environments in the world.

Incomplete crossings

It's snowing!

"We humans are pedestrians"

Canyon Lands of the I-95

Don't be a 'zoner'

Author: Nina Arron

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