Will Curb Extensions and Signs Do the Job at Broadway and Dyckman?
It won’t be long before pedestrians will have shorter crossing distances at Broadway, Dyckman Street, and Riverside Drive in Inwood.
Last we checked, work was just getting underway on curb extensions, following the installation of signs prohibiting left turns for motorists approaching the intersection from all directions. As of this afternoon, the southeast curb extension was complete, and the concrete was drying on the northeast corner. An extension of a narrow pedestrian island that separates north- and southbound lanes on Riverside was also done. Work is still in progress on a second, larger Riverside pedestrian island, where northbound auto traffic forks for right turns, which will be expanded on two of its three sides.
As for left turns, during a five to 10 minute period I saw one motorist make a now-banned turn from southbound Broadway onto eastbound Dyckman. Upper Manhattan resident Kimberly Kinchen tweeted last week that she observed several drivers ignoring the new signs in the span of a few minutes. If this project is to meet DOT’s goal of improving safety by reducing motorist-pedestrian conflicts, it may take more than signage to get drivers to follow the rules. And though the intersection already seems to function more efficiently, motorists continue to speed through it despite the constant presence of pedestrians, many of them seniors and children.
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