The Department of Transportation has a plan to improve traffic circulation in Lower Manhattan and make the area near Broad and South Sts. safer for pedestrians.
BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC | The city Dept. of Transportation is making changes to an F.D.R. exit near Broad and South Sts. in an effort to improve traffic circulation in Lower Manhattan as well as make the area safer for pedestrians starting in three months.
There have been some issues at the intersection of South and Broad Sts., where the F.D.R. exits onto South St., explained Richard Carmona, D.O.T. project manager and part of its Pedestrian Projects Group.
“There’s a lot of traffic on local streets — traffic going around the horn, going from Water St. to State St. to get to the Hugh Carey Tunnel or to 9A or to the West Side,” he told Community Board 1’s Financial District Committee at their Wed., Apr. 1 meeting.
From the pedestrian point of view — and why the D.O.T. became interested in the project — the more traffic that’s on local streets, the more vehicles are making turns through the crosswalk, he said. The D.O.T. is trying to minimize the number of vehicles doing that, said Carmona.
Carmona explained the proposed plan, which included four elements.
First, the D.O.T. wants to open the entrance from South St. into the Battery Park Underpass. To do this, the department will remove the Jersey barrier — concrete walls that are used to separate traffic lanes — and flexible delineators, which are plastic orange posts that, in this case, work as a deterrent to entering the tunnel.
The 310-feet segment will then become a merging zone that will allow access from South St. to the Battery Park Underpass while still maintaining access from the F.D.R. into exit 1, said Carmona.
“I think it’s a great idea,” said Michael Ketring, a committee member and local resident. “It’s safe. It’ll keep people from going locally to try to hook up with West St.”
Secondly, after exit 2, the F.D.R. will be two moving lanes instead of three, said Carmona. Vehicles will then have to cross only one of lane of traffic to merge instead of two, he said.
The next part is that the D.O.T. will reduce the speed limit from 40 m.p.h. to 30 on the F.D.R. south of exit 2.
The committee’s chairperson, Ro Sheffe, said he liked the improvements around exit 2, but had concerns about enforcing the reduced speed limit.
“Given the way people drive on the F.D.R. there’s going to have to be fairly strenuous enforcement of those new speed limits,” said Sheffe. “Typically people are going 60 miles per hour.”
The last element of the plan will be to improve curbside parking regulations along that stretch of South St. Carmona explained that there will no longer by parking available 35 feet to the south of 125 Broad St. and 40 feet to the north. The signage has yet to be determined but it will probably be no standing during daytime hours.
D.O.T.’s Lower Manhattan Borough Commissioner Luis Sanchez said the changes should improve traffic circulation. The work, which will take less than a month, is scheduled for June. Sanchez said that it involved striping the road, removing barriers and signage work.
