In N.Y.C., even grown-ups need crossing guards
Pedestrian safety managers patrol one of Manhattan’s busiest roads
NEW YORK— Elaine Vespermann waited on the corner for his lead.
Only when Preston Martin charged across six lanes of rush-hour traffic did she follow behind him. He waved at cars to keep them at bay. He watched over her until she reached the other side of the street.
After too many close calls, Vespermann, 38, a babysitter, does not like to cross by herself anymore. “He helps, always,” she said. “It’s very hard every day. There are too many cars and the people are crazy sometimes.”
New York City’s increasingly frenetic streetscape has become a gauntlet for pedestrians forced to traverse multiple traffic lanes, weave around blocked intersections and sidestep bicycles and scooters whizzing by — all before the light turns from green to red. It is Martin’s job to make sure no one gets run over.
While school crossing guards have long shepherded children across the street, the city’s traffic has become so perilous that now even grown-ups need crossing guards. Officially known as pedestrian safety managers, they are vigilant escorts across some of the city’s busiest intersections. They are not the traffic police; they cannot hand out tickets and their focus is not on keeping cars moving. Instead, they are bodyguards for pedestrians. As soon as the walk sign flashes, they are the first ones into the crosswalk. They shadow the elderly, the young and anyone needing extra time or care. They watch over everyone — especially those too distracted by texting or talking to watch out for themselves.
So far, they are a fixture in just one Manhattan neighbourhood — Hudson Square, a fast-growing commercial hub that is about to become even more crowded with Google planning a $1-billion (U.S.) campus for up to 7,000 workers.
“The traffic is overwhelming,” said Doris Garcia, 44, a mother of four from Brooklyn who supervises the pedestrian safety managers in heat, rain and snow. “Pedestrians yell at drivers. If drivers don’t listen, sometimes we have to put our whole body in the intersection just to stop the cars.”
Across the city, 106 pedestrians were killed in crashes with motor vehicles last year and more than 10,700 other pedestrians were injured, according to traffic data. That death toll was the lowest number of traffic fatalities in the city since 1910, the Times reported. The city reported 184 pedestrians were killed in 2013, the year Mayor Bill De Blasio proposed Vision Zero. The city’s initiative has included steps such as reducing the speed limit to 25 miles an hour (40 km/h), more stringent enforcement of moving violations, revamping hundreds of street corners to slow down turning cars and rejiggering crossing signals to give pedestrians a head start.
New York is spending $1.6 billion over five years for it’s Vision Zero plan. The pedestrian managers stand guard over one of the city’s worst choke points: where Varick St. feeds into the Holland Tunnel. An average of 40,742 vehicles go through the tunnel every weekday to New Jersey and beyond. Increasingly, this snaking traffic is competing with throngs of newcomers to Hudson Square. The neighbourhood was once home to printing presses and other manufacturers, but has been reinvented as a thriving commercial area with more than 1,000 companies, many in technology, media and advertising. It has more than 50,000 workers and thousands of new residents following a 2013 city rezoning.
The stretch of Varick between Houston and Spring Sts. has become one of the most dangerous in Manhattan. Though there have been no deaths, 119 people, including 40 pedestrians and nine cyclists, were injured in crashes from 2012 to 2016.
Ellen Baer, president of the Hudson Square Business Improvement District, came up with the idea for pedestrian managers in 2011, after seeing traffic managers expertly move people around a construction site at the World Trade Center. “What we’re trying to do is change the focus from cars to people, and put people first,” Baer said.
Now, the business district has expanded the operation from three weeknights to every weeknight, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., when outbound tunnel traffic jams the streets. (Incoming tunnel traffic enters Manhattan elsewhere.) Up to nine pedestrian managers are on duty, often with two at a time in the busiest intersections. It costs $300,000 a year, or as much as other neighbourhoods spend on street cleaning and trash pickups. The pedestrian managers are paid $22 to $25 an hour. Baer calls them “pedestrian safety and sanity managers” because they improve the quality of life. They unblock crosswalks and intersections, deter jaywalking and even help to lessen honking. And they keep people safe; no injuries have been reported while they have been on duty, she added.
The pedestrian managers are hired and trained by Sam Schwartz Pedestrian Traffic Management Services, a company run by Schwartz, a former city traffic commissioner. The company has 250 traffic managers working in New York, New Jersey and three other states.
The city’s Transportation Department requires pedestrian traffic managers to have at least five years’ experience working in law enforcement or in directing traffic and pedestrians at construction sites, and to receive specialized training. The pedestrian managers in Hudson Square complete a two-day safety course, which reviews traffic rules, verbal commands and hand motions and gives pointers on avoiding being drawn into arguments. Then they are sent into traffic for onthe-job training.