How not to be road kill

I jumped off the curb recently right into a conclusion.  There is an intersection here in New Rochelle on Webster and Glenmore next to the Daniel Webster Elementary School.  There is a paving slab laid across the green strip to the curb on Webster showing that it is accepted as a crossing point but there is no cross walk.  In fact it is the first time I have seen a crossing guard without a cross walk.  So, I leapt to the conclusion that there SHOULD be a crosswalk.  The City of New Rochelle has informally acknowledged it is a 'bad situation' but has also said there is no plan to improve this crossing point for children on a busy road until 2014.  One opinion from within city hall is that pedestrian crossings can make pedestrians lazy and less careful and therefore it could be bad to install one.  As children are notorious for poor impulse control I am unsure of the validity of such an argument and the crossing guard is certainly not going to become blase since she is out there every day armed only with her little sign in the middle of traffic. I considered the placement of a pedestrian crossing here as a warning to drivers that they should slow down and pay attention rather than something that would breed lazy pedestrians.

The town hall response however has made me take a step back and reframe my question to "how can we make this intersection safer?"  Is a cross walk actually the BEST option?  Are there other things we can do that would be more effective? I'm off to do some research and will report back.  In the meantime here's a link to an article about someone who decided direct action was needed in their neighborhood.  http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10885427