For decades New Rochelleans have wondered why an effective pedestrian safety tool for busy intersections has not been deployed in New Rochelle.  Anyone familiar with the Four Corners in Pelham (intersection of Boston Post Road and Pelhamdale Avenue) or the intersection on Route 1 and Weaver Street in Larchmont knows that four-way red-light stops (also known as an “exclusive pedestrian phase” or EPP) have been deployed for years to assist school children, shoppers, parishioners, the elderly and impaired to safely cross these busy intersections.

With the 2023 opening of the new luxury senior housing at Mill Road and North Avenue in the North End, new curb cuts, raised pedestrian crosswalks, and a four-way red-light stop have made this intersection safe for pedestrians working and living in that area.

Meanwhile, in the South End,  at the corner of Lincoln Avenue and Memorial Highway, no pedestrian safety measures are in place, even as more truck and car traffic is being diverted there due to work on the North Avenue Bridge.

The Lincoln Avenue community’s decades-long requests for increased lighting, raised crosswalks, elimination of right on red, elimination of the two lane turn onto a single lane on Lincoln Avenue and a four-way red light stop signal at that intersection continue to be ignored. 

In 2011, the NYS Complete Streets Act was signed into law.  It requires state, county and local agencies to consider the convenience and mobility of all users when developing transportation projects that receive state and federal funding.  New Rochelle has applied for funding under this Act from its inception.  Most of those projects have involved traffic calming and curb cuts.  None have addressed the long-standing pedestrian safety concerns along Memorial Highway. 

The 2018 NYS Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI) grant of $10 million has $8 million going to the LINC and includes a Complete Streets concept with  a traffic study.  An update to the LINC traffic study, dated April 23, 2023, reports that a shocking “537 reportable crashes, no fatalities, 217 injuries, 44 pedestrian crashes, and seven bicycle crashes occurred at the study area intersections“ in a five- year period (page 23).  The 14 highest crash locations, defined as having ten or more crashes in a consecutive 12-month period include the following:

 Memorial Highway and Lincoln Avenue  

Memorial Highway Roundabout

 Memorial Highway and Lockwood Avenue

 As year seven of the DRI award begins, the community is being treated to yet another round of community listening tours. Many wonder why pedestrian safety measures like those installed on Mill Road and North Avenue are not being implemented at Lincoln Avenue and Memorial Highway. 

For years, former New Rochelle City Manager Chuck Strome and the former Mayor and City Council cited the need for a traffic study as the rationale for the lack of any pedestrian safety measures along Memorial Highway.

Ironically, in his new job, as Mamaroneck’s Interim Village Manager, Strome again cited the need for a traffic study when community members advocated for a four-way red-light stop at the intersection of Mamaroneck Avenue and New Street, where 44-year-old Molly Murphey Donovan and her 6-year-old son Mikey were killed by a minibus while walking to school last June.

But the four-way red-light stop was not included in a letter Strome co-authored outlining the agreements between Mamaroneck and Westchester County, which owns Mamaroneck Avenue.  Mamaroneck residents considered this a “broken promise.”  

When asked about this omission, according to an article in LoHud, Strome stated that putting the exclusive pedestrian phase in place would require a traffic engineering study.   Outraged Mamaroneck residents were able to convince town and county elected officials that their lives mattered more than the flow of car traffic, and the change was made within weeks.

During this budget season, with a new administration in City Hall,  the City Council is being urged to finally take a hard look at pedestrian safety along Lincoln Avenue and Memorial Highway.