DON'T GET ME STARTED . . .
THEN AS NOW: When this postcard was manufactured at the turn of the last century, Westervelt Avenue in St. George (then, New Brighton) was already very much a pedestrian street. A little more than a century later, the roadbed is macadam; the vehicles are more plentiful, motorized, and look radically different. What hasn't changed is this: More than in any other Staten Island neighborhood, people walk up and down our hilly streets to get where they're going today, just as they did then.
AUTO-CENTRIC POLICIES
FAIL STATEN ISLAND'S MOST WALKABLE NEIGHBORHOOD
As a person who gets around Staten Island on foot as soon as the weather starts to warm, it can seem as though, in the Staten Island Department of Transportation's (DOT's) view of the world, pedestrians are just another traffic obstruction. Like those pesky yellow buses that drivers have to stop for when school's in session. Or those annoying sanitation trucks that slow down motorists unlucky enough to pull up behind them on narrow streets.
ABOVE LEFT, a man pushes a stroller, his child in his arms, as he walks west on St. Marks Place, approaching the northeast corner of Westervelt Avenue ABOVE RIGHT].
If the man wants to cross Westervelt--maybe to get a gallon of milk at the deli in the St. George Gardens Stores--he'll have to take his chances with oncoming north- and southbound traffic that often races by at speeds well above the legal limit. There is no crosswalk to alert drivers that they are approaching a pedestrian crossing. The nearest one is a block and a half away.
From St. Marks Place south to the V formed by the meeting of Westervelt and Hamilton avenues, the only section of roadway with a designated crosswalk is the one shown at left, from the southeast to the northeast corner of St. Marks Place and Westervelt Avenue. The man seen here is walking north on Westervelt Avenue toward Richmond Terrace.
MAKING STREETS MORE NAVIGABLE FOR CARS
USUALLY MAKES THEM MORE UNSAFE FOR PEDESTRIANS
Though I've read that awareness of the issues that plague pedestrians is improving at Department of Transportation offices in the other boroughs, on Staten Island, DOT is in the business of business as usual: Keeping Traffic Moving. That's car traffic, you understand. The other kind--the pedestrian kind--just has to wait till the cars pass. It's clear who owns the street and owns it both by design and default.
What DOT doesn't seem to understand is this: part of the agency's job description is moderating traffic to allow pedestrians to cross streets safely. Proof of this failure of understanding isn't hard to come by. All I have to do is walk out my front door and try to cross the street--busy Westervelt Avenue.
At right, also barely visible but shown clearly in the photo below, is the S42 bus stop, where passengers routinely get off and cross the street at mid-block. DOT provides pedestrians no alternative to this dangerous practice. As you can see, cars coming over the hill often can't be seen at all.
AT TWO OF ST. GEORGE'S BUSIEST INTERSECTIONS,
DOT GIVES PEDESTRIANS ONLY ONE CROSSWALK
WHEN ACTUAL USAGE SHOWS WE NEED SIX.
The corner outside my house is the intersection of two major streets--one of two (the other is at Hamilton and Westervelt) within the span of a single block. Both are:
thru traffic routes;
bus and school bus routes with stops;
pedestrian routes for local shoppers,
two public and one parochial elementary school,
students of Curtis High School,
commuters going to or coming from any of four bus lines that stop nearby,
and the Staten Island Ferry.
On Sundays, many of the worshippers at four different churches arrive on foot for services as well.
Don't try taking the photo of Westervelt Avenue, above, on a weekday before 10 a.m. or after 2 p.m., when this location becomes a parade of cars, trucks, buses and school buses, with occasional gaps that allow pedestrians to cross.
The Saint George Gardens Stores on the west side of Westervelt Avenue between Hamilton Avenue and St. Marks Place are an official New York City landmark. They were built just before the Great Depression to provide retail services to the nearby St. George Gardens apartment development, now known as Sea View Estates. Sporting a distinctive tilework facade and lots of garish signage, the stores serve very basic, very local shopping needs.
PARKING SIGN, RIGHT: This is no high-end shopping center whose well-heeled patrons spend hours going from store to store.
C'mon, this is Westervelt Avenue. These are the St. George Gardens Stores--the place to get a container of milk, place a Lottery bet, do some laundry, take out some Chinese food, or take in some dry cleaning. Mostly on foot.
So why does DOT designate the section of the street in front of these stores a two-hour parking zone? Such generous parking time limits only encourage drivers to dawdle, promoting double-parking on a bus route at a major intersection. Not smart. And not necessary.
IF YOU HAVE TWO WHEELS AND A MOTOR,
YOU OWN THE STREET
Despite all this pedestrian activity, vehicular traffic on Westervelt Avenue between St. Marks Place and Hamilton Avenue is essentially unregulated.
That means drivers call the shots and pedestrians have to wait patiently for an opening in the onrush of traffic.
At a time when Road Rage rules, find me the pedestrian who'll take on a Cadillac Escalade over who gets to go first. That's DOT's job to mediate, with signage, road-markings, and enforcement.
In the single block from Westervelt Avenue at St. Marks Place to Westervelt Avenue where it meets Hamilton, there are six locations where pedestrians cross the street--all high vehicular traffic locations, particularly in the early-to- mid-morning and mid- to late-afternoon hours.
DOT'S EISENHOWER-ERA POLICIES DON'T SUPPORT
COMMISSIONER SADIK-KHAN'S PUSH FOR
MORE WALKABLE, LESS CAR-DEPENDENT NEIGHBORHOODS
Pedestrians pay taxes just like drivers, but on Staten Island we're strictly second-class citizens when it comes to the use of the streets whose upkeep we pay for. In a time of scarce resources and a severely wounded environment, pedestrians are treated like the child who's a credit to her family and is routinely ignored. All the attention goes to her out-of-control, problem-child sibling. In this case, the out-of-control sibling is the automobile.
Under a more progressive commissioner like Janette Sadik-Khan, you'd think DOT policy would encourage pedestrian use of city streets, and in other boroughs this seems to be happening. But not here, not yet. On Staten Island, we're still Happy Motoring our way through the 1950s.
WHAT STATEN ISLAND DOT HAS FORGOTTEN:
THEY'RE OUR STREETS, TOO.
This, despite the fact that pedestrians, powered by human engines, don't pollute or make noise. We don't degrade the roadbed or sidewalk. Don't require insuring, towing, licensing or servicing and take up a fraction of the space the average car does. And because pedestrians get more exercise walking, we tend to place fewer demands on city services related to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, pulmonary illness and the like. And yet transportation policy is built around serving the mobility needs of drivers, not pedestrians.
Huh?
This pro-auto bias is nonsensical, sure. More to the point, though, it's unfair. And that unfairness is an imposition on OUR rights to clean air, noise pollution abatement, and freedom from intimidation by drivers, who in physical terms have all the power. We need laws that transfer some of that power to pedestrians. They're our streets, too.
THE KINDS OF TRANSPORTATION POLICIES
WE NEED FROM STATEN ISLAND DOT
Transportation
policy is not a zero-sum enterprise. Policies that produce safer
streets don't achieve that goal at drivers' expense. Safer streets are safer for everybody, including drivers.
Specifically, here are the kinds of policy changes we need from DOT as
we face the challenges of an era of scarce resources, deepening environmental
calamity, and a clearer understanding of the public health costs of favoring driving over walking:
--more traffic lights that last longer, allowing people to cross at a reasonable pace--not making them wait in the middle of a traffic island for the light to change
--more bike lanes on high-traffic thru streets
--more speed bumps, rotaries and other traffic-calming improvements
--a moratorium on the changeover of major streets from two to one way, which turn local neighborhood streets into speedways (VanDuzer and Targee streets are exactly what we don't want our local streets to become)
--intensive use of pedestrian crosswalks that promote pedestrian safety--and make streets into shared space rather than high-speed roadways with small strips of concrete set aside for those who'd rather walk than drive
--traffic-free streets (Stuyvesant Place in St. George and Little Bay Street west of Tompkinsville Park are logical candidates). In both these situations, retail is mainly local; people don't drive long distances to buy a slice of pizza, a box of tissues or a loaf of bread. Eliminate cars and turn these streets into real marketplaces with tables and fountains and public spaces for public events.
* * *
The
most urban, most walkable neighborhood on Staten Island needs a DOT
rethink that considers the rights, needs and preferences of pedestrians
who live here as well as the rights, needs and preferences of motorists who speed through our
neighborhood on their way somewhere else.
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