When I first outlined a draft of this post a few months ago, it had a title of "City Throws Subway Riders Under the Bus". That title was meant to be a little funny and a lot snarky, but as of this past week, it's no longer funny and snark seems completely inappropriate.
Sadly, a 73-year-old man was knocked under a bus and dragged to his death at the corner of 96th and Broadway a week ago. (That same night a 9-year-old boy was hit and killed at another problematic intersection just a block away.) And again yesterday, a young woman was hit and killed by an ambulance while crossing 96th Street near Broadway.
What's going on here?
Both pedestrians killed on 96th Street were crossing outside of designated crosswalks, so it's tempting to blame pedestrians. And if a story in today's NY Post is accurate, the city seems to be doing just that. That story — combined with the presence of three traffic cops, a half dozen barricades and a flashing highway sign that reads "Pedestrians, use cross walks" — makes it quite clear that authorities feel pedestrians are to blame.
But if the city is looking to place blame, it might turn a mirror on itself — especially if it wants to solve what is turning into an ongoing circulation fiasco — because the new 96th Street subway entrance, and the traffic pattern surrounding it, may be just about the craziest urban design solution anyone could ever imagine.
Think I'm being a little harsh? Let's just look at the simple truth. Before the city and/or MTA spent $98 million reconstructing it, uptown residents entering the 96th Street station need only cross ONE busy Street — 96th Street. Now, after all that work is done, uptown residents must cross TWO busy streets — 96th Street and Broadway. Was there a plan to double pedestrian-vehicular interface?
And if that weren't crazy enough, pedestrians must now wait through THREE traffic lights, where they once had to wait through only one. Did the plan intend to impede pedestrian access to mass transit?
Still not crazy enough? The plan also narrowed the surrounding sidewalks where pedestrians must now congregate as they wait on additional traffic lights. Was the hope to increase pedestrian congestion?
ORIGINAL CIRCULATION Subway riders (blue) from uptown needed only cross ONE busy street at the intersection before entering the 96th Street station. Vehicular traffic (yellow) intersected with these pedestrians at only two spots (red stars).
PEDESTRIANS ADAPT
This urban planning disaster seems like a concept straight out of the worst of the Robert Moses years — prioritizing cars and chopping up neighborhoods with traffic moats that inhibit pedestrian flow. But even Robert Moses ran into headwinds when he tried to impose these plans on scrappy neighborhoods, like Greenwich Village, and outspoken citizens, like Jane Jacobs. Likewise, the city's new pedestrian plan for 96th street has met its match on the Upper West Side.
Upper West Siders are a sassy bunch that don't take well to being pushed around or inconvenienced, so it didn't take long for them to figure out that if they missed the traffic light, they could raft up in the center mall and cross 96th Street en masse once the light changed. It was reported that this time-saving shortcut was being undertaken by last week's victim when he was knocked down by a tour bus — he was crossing in the center of the intersection between the malls.
I too have made this crossing many times, even though I knew it could be dangerous. Why?
Because New Yorkers are generally impatient and in a hurry, sure, but also because we don't like to be inconvenienced without good reason. When we feel a system has slighted us — as this new circulation pattern slights pedestrians — we tend to disregard it and fend for ourselves. Call it a form of civil disobedience, or just call it chutzpah.
NEW CIRCULATION Subway riders from uptown (blue) now need cross TWO streets at busy intersection to enter subway. These pedestrians now intersect with vehicular traffic (yellow) at four crossings (solid red stars). If unofficial shortcut is included, subway pedestrians intersect with traffic at an additional three locations (hollow red stars), making every sector of this intersection potentially dangerous.
SUCCESS MISUNDERSTOOD
So why did the city and MTA disregard its walking & mass transit using citizens?
It seems clear to almost everyone who rides the subway and lives on the Upper West Side that the city and MTA were trying to repeat what they had done successfully at 72nd Street. That subway entrance, at street level anyway, is loved by all who use it.
Looking for differences between these two redesigned entrances, we could easily be distracted by aesthetics (like others, I find the new 72nd street structure attractive and contextual, while the 96th Street station seems alien and imposed upon the neighborhood), but we really must look much deeper to find the reason one is successful while the other fails miserably. That reason can only be found in the two radically different circulation plans: the 72nd Street plan has DIFFUSED circulation, while the 96th Street plan has CONCENTRATED it.
The success at 72nd Street is deceptively simple: the new entrance was built NORTH of 72nd Street so most subway commuters never need cross, or even approach, that intersection again. Riders coming from uptown now cross Broadway at a less hectic 73rd Street, while riders form downtown can still cross at 70th or 71st Street. Pedestrian traffic has been decentralized AWAY from the busy intersection.
Planners, who probably spent tens of thousands of dollars analyzing these two intersections, failed to grasp this simple concept and somehow managed to recreate the problems rather than the solution. Where there were originally TWO separate entrances on wider sidewalks at 96th Street, there is now only ONE — one that's embedded inside a very busy and complicated intersection. Subway riders coming from uptown must now cross BOTH Broadway and 96th Street, doubling their chances of being hit by a car.
And if doubling the chance of an accident weren't foolish enough, the crossing is now additionally confused by a counter-intuitive turn signal. Pedestrians, once accustomed to crossing when traffic stops, are now left wondering what to do when traffic isn't moving and the "don't walk" signal hasn't yet changed. Most elect to cross anyway and unwittingly place themselves in the path of turning vehicles, some of which race to beat the light.
No one knows quite what to do at this intersection. It presents a major obstacle to moving about the neighborhood — which leads many residents to avoid it any way possible, including crossing mid-block, as the second victim was attempting yesterday when fatally stuck by an ambulance.
IT DIDN'T NEED TO BE THIS WAY.
Was diffuse circulation really not possible at 96th Street?
The previous lessons learned seem applicable enough: place the new entrance north of the intersection and allow uptown residents to cross at 97th street and continue to the subway entrance inside the mall. Just like 72nd Street, no subway rider would need ever cross, or even approach, 96th Street again — riders to the south could continue to enter through four existing sidewalk entrances.
A historic structure already exists on the Broadway mall just north of 96th Street. (Was it originally a subway entrance?) And is that an emergency staircase just north of this structure that presumably connects down to the tracks? It certainly seems logical to repurpose that structure and expand this portal down to the platform.
Perhaps there is some structural obstacle to this repurposing? If so, some other plan that learns from the 72nd Street experience would surely have made it possible to move subway entrances AWAY from the busy intersection, not INSIDE it, surrounded by a traffic vortex.
THE 72ND STREET MODEL Had the success at 72nd Street been replicated with a new entrance NORTH of the intersection, uptown subway riders (blue) need never cross at the busy 96th Street intersection. (A small percentage approaching along 96th Street may elect to cross Broadway there (hollow red stars). Downtown riders continue to use original subway entrances, and vehicular traffic (yellow) at the intersection avoids nearly all subway pedestrians.
WHAT CAN BE DONE NOW?
Now that the money has been spent and the neighborhood inconvenienced by years of construction, there are probably few viable options to be pursued. Even if the historic building could be repurposed, the platform would surely need reconfiguring — a possibility that seems highly unlikely now that the resources have already been spent.
No, for the foreseeable future, it seems the city must simply bear the cost of traffic officers at the crossing — although they seemed completely ineffective at preventing jaywalking when I was there this morning.
Now that I think about it, one immediate improvement does come to mind — get rid of that turn signal. Even better, just prohibit traffic from turning at 96th Street all together. I know that would piss drivers off, but so what? Sustainable cities need to discourage driving, not make it easier. We should all be encouraged to use mass transit — or walk.
So make that easier.