Crossing guards for adults as well as children are coming soon to West St., thanks to a $1.2 million grant from the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver requested the grant last month at his taskforce on West St. safety, and the L.M.D.C. was expected to approve it at a board meeting Thursday morning, Silver told Downtown Express on Wednesday.
“We went to bat for this,” Silver said. “It is a hazard for children to cross West St. in order to get to school. In addition to that, you have the Goldman building that just opened, and the workers are coming across. And the residents in Battery Park City — they really need it.”
Silver is particularly concerned about children crossing West St. at W. Thames St. to get to P.S./I.S. 276, the new K-8 school opening in southern Battery Park City this fall. He wants to see crossing guards at that intersection, and also likely at Chambers, Warren, Murray and Albany Sts.
The L.M.D.C. money would likely be used to hire Sam Schwartz Engineering, a traffic consulting firm that already provides the crossing guards, called pedestrian managers, to the Port Authority near the World Trade Center site.
In a presentation last month, Schwartz’s team estimated that $1.2 million would be enough to provide a “minimal solution” of one or two pedestrian managers at each of the key crossings on weekdays and weekends for one year. The “optimal solution,” with as many as six guards at each intersection, would cost $2 million a year.
Silver said there is no definite plan for the number of guards, so it is uncertain how long the money will last.
“We’ll manage the $1.2 million judiciously to see how long we can stretch it,” Silver said. “Obviously it’s going to have to be supplemented…. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
— Julie Shapiro
