Manhattan Bridge Celebration - Reality Check

Chinatown Entrance to the Manhattan Bridge, still a death trap.
CCRC ORIG. POSTED A STORY ON THIS IN MARCH 09, please see the older posting on the Manhattan Bridge


There is strong objection in the Chinatown community to the Manhattan Bridge Centennial Celebration which kicks off this Sunday, October 4, 2009 including some of the families of the victims who have been killed or injured there. We've lost count but believe there were 4 or 5 fatalities last year alone. In the shadow of the celebrations stands a lone white "ghost bike" a reminder of a young person killed while riding at that very location.
The city is celebrating a site where there have been decades of deaths in the community with the DOT to this day refusing to post signage slowing down traffic exiting from the bridge and alerting drivers of their passage through a thriving residential area.

Although community leaders have met with previous Lower Manhattan DOT commissioners, particularly after one series of traffic accidents on the Bowery near the Manhattan Bridge several years ago and expressed our deep concerns and cited its reputation as one of the city's "traffic hotspots". The commissioner said he would take a while to study the problem (one year) and came back with no signage. .




The DOT is hell bent on speeding traffic to the Holland Tunnel especially after the installation of the Verrazano Bridge tolls. To avoid paying high fees -- drivers unnecessarily drive into Manhattan dramatically increasing traffic congestion. One CCRC member's whose memory stretches back to the 1960s recalls her mother's co-worker's daughter's death while trying to cross Canal at Elizabeth Street after school on her way to her mother's garment factory job. Nothing has changed.



The Canal Area Transportation Study or CATS I and CATS II studied Canal Street traffic as part of a regional plan that started about 8 years ago with no end in sight. It's ideas, some that were laudable, have yet to be enacted. A study succeeds because it is followed by corrective action. Otherwise the failure to post just one sign, to give death a holiday, becomes yet another symbol of the bureaucratic inertia that cripples government. Do we study a problem to death so that by the time the study is over, the complainants would have moved or new people are installed in government who can in good conscience say, they are clueless about the issue. Post the damn Manhattan Bridge sign already.

further commentary:

One important factor that might have changed people's minds WELL in advance of this celebration is a definitive time line, and a definitive plan to once and for all FIX the problem at the Bridge. I attended Senator Squadron's rally at the Bridge supporting his attempt at getting a red light camera at the location, but many in my area are skeptical that that will ever happen. In the meantime the injuries and deaths may still occur.

community members in the past have suggested, what is known in Hong Kong as a "flyover" which is a pedestrian bridge that is elevated above the traffic zooming past the entrance to the bridge. With the idea that chinatown "needs and arch" this may be the perfect opportunity to incorporate SAFETY and a symbol into one useful fixture.


In cities in Asia there are far more pedestrians and far less deaths at the hands of vehicles due in some part to these flyovers.

the point is the community has met with DOT and pols many times over this, and at the very least some commitment is in order from the City.

Barring that commitment the president of the Board of Hamilton Madison House on which I sit as an executive board member, has also opted out of the celebrations, and has officially made a statement to the Chinese media explaining our position.
Jan Lee

and even more commentary :

It is important to acknowledge the ABSENCE of several notable Chinatown organizations from the celebration . Lin Sing Association, which is 109 years old, located at 46 Mott St. determined that the many horrible deaths that have occurred at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge is nothing to celebrate.

In fact today's Sing Tao newspaper, the largest Chinese language paper in New York, interviews family members of victims of traffic accidents at the Bridge. To date, after over a decade of Chinatown advocates pleading with the City and DOT to improve the situation at the Bridge , nothing has been done.

Following the lead of Lin Sing Association, numerous other clubs and age old support groups have protested the celebration by not appearing on Sunday. The Chinatown Consolidated Benevolent Association's board, in opposition to its Board President, Justin Yu, voted NOT to participate.

Justin Yu, however, is expected by many to make an appearance. Justin Yu's daughter, it is known by many in Chinatown, works for Mayor Bloomberg in his community assistance unit.

Thompson said to City Hall in Dec. 2008 "Chatham Square must be delayed"

PR08-12-183

December 16, 2008
Contact: Press Office

(212) 669-3747

THOMPSON TO CITY: CHATHAM SQUARE PROPOSAL MUST BE DELAYED

New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. is expressing deep concerns about the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Chatham Square / Park Row Improvement Program.

In a letter to DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan – which can be viewed at www.comptroller.nyc.gov – Thompson criticized the agency for moving forward with the plan despite overwhelming community opposition from Chinatown and surrounding neighborhoods.

“It’s clear that Chatham Square – with its long crossings and poor pedestrian sight lines – must be rethought, and that he congested traffic on Park Row must be improved,” Thompson said.. “But process matters, and the City has not engaged in sufficient dialogue with community members. As it stands now, neighborhood representatives feel left out of the process.”

Thompson also expressed concern that Community Board 3 is scheduled to vote on the plan tonight, after one hardly-publicized hearing on December 2, 2008.

“As a result, a plan that would completely tear down and redesign a large area of Chinatown may be approved within the span of two weeks,” Thompson added. “Clearly, community members have not been given enough time to respond to the plan nor even comprehend it, as specific details have been perfunctory at best.”

In the letter, Thompson emphasized that DOT cannot guarantee that local small businesses will be supported during the project’s construction phase as a fatal flaw. He also cited DOT’s lack of a specific timeline for the project as problematic, and stressed that the plan does not make clear when, exactly, Park Row will be opened.

“These and other questions must be answered before this ill-conceived plan moves forward,” Thompson said. “For the sake of community members, local businesses, and our City government’s responsibility to operate fairly and transparently, I strongly urge you to delay this proposal and being to address the community’s significant needs and concerns.”

Oversight Overdue

For too long the Dept. of Transportation has gotten away with altering streets without sufficient oversight or community input. On a frigid Saturday a week before Christmas a rally was held in front of The DOT headquarters to call for the Transportation Committee of The City Council to hold an oversight hearing with the D.O.T. to stop using communities as experimental rats in a maze.
Tribeca, Greenwich Village, Chinatown, and SoHo stood shoulder to shoulder in the freezing weather (a testament to how devoted communities are to this cause) to bring attention to the need for an end to free wheeling deal making with special interest groups hell bent on bull dozing through projects that are untested, unproven and unreasonable .