Pierina Sanchez questions DOT on dangerous highway ramp intersections

Thank you so much, Majority Leader, and thank you for this very important hearing.

So I have two sets of questions.

The first one, and apologies if this topic has been touched on, but Vision Zero, Vision Zero Reimagined, and the Streets Plan all charge the agency with redesigning streets to improve pedestrian safety, as we've been talking about today.

including consideration of hardened daylighting.

In my neck of the woods, DOT has made significant changes to Bailey Avenue and Sedgwick Avenue in recent years, including this year.

Yet the most dangerous intersections of all, where the street grid collides with the entrance and exit ramps of the I-87 or Major Deegan Expressway at Burnside, Fordham Road, and 231st Street, have remained largely unchanged.

How do I explain to my constituents why no changes were made at the most dangerous intersections of all where there were significant redesigns?

And part two is help me what interventions exist to make these specific kinds of high conflict locations like highway entrances more safe?

And what should I be advocating that you do at these locations?

Thank you so much, Councilmember.

And I got to say, I had the pleasure of biking down Bailey just a couple weekends ago and seeing the new extension there and also seeing...

You should have came by and said, I live right by this.

Yeah, next time.

Yeah, it was a weekend.

I happened to be coming back from something in Marble Hill.

But I also saw some of the challenges that you mentioned.

I know that something we were pretty proud of at the northern end by Van Cortlandt Park, there's some ramps right from the highway there, and we were able to make some pretty significant changes.

I'm not sure if you want to speak about some of the others.

Yeah, and like these interfaces between the highway and streets.

Have been an increased focus.

They tend to be complicated intersections.

They also are a little bit more complicated because they involve people beyond us, like the Fordham Road exit off the Deegan is really controlled by state DOT.

And so we've been in touch with them and expressed that that is a priority for us for them to redesign.

But at the end, it's their bridge and their highway.

So we need them to come to the table.

We are happy to work with them.

And we have very creative designers.

But part of the reason those sometimes take longer is because it's not as much in our control as some of the school streets.

And sorry, just because I'm limited on time, I have another question.

What changes should I be advocating for when we do get state DOT at the table?

Sure, and it varies location by location, but essentially what we want to do is make sure we're protecting pedestrians and providing safe time for pedestrians to cross, and then make sure that the turning vehicles are properly managed.

We can talk to you separately in great detail, but obviously at Fordham and Deegan, one of the problems is that the left turns overlap tremendously so that people go around and make double and triple lefts.

I've never done that.

Yeah, me neither.

But, you know, the intersection, sort of the design causes the bad behavior.

And so, you know, there's different intersection designs that have happened since the 1950s that do better at that sort of thing.

Thank you.