Manny Cantor Center was filled Thursday night with 175 residents, half a dozen elected officials, and two high-ranking Department of Transportation officials to talk about the growing traffic problem on Grand and Clinton Streets. District Leaders Caroline Laskow and Lee Berman hosted the event.

The problem is focused on the corner of Grand and Clinton Streets, where cars coming west on Grand Street from the FDR Drive and north on Clinton Street from downtown Manhattan converge before getting on the Williamsburg Bridge. The bottleneck there keeps our streets clogged with honking cars during evening rush hour and late at night, dramatically impacting safety and quality of life. (See Matt Marello’s video to witness the problem.)

How did this come about? Sean Quinn, from DOT’s Office of Bicycle and Pedestrian Programs kicked off the evening with a presentation detailing 10 years of pedestrian safety improvements in the neighborhood that have left these streets unable to cope with the increase in automobiles. Most impactful was the decision in 2012, in response to the growing rate of accidents on Delancey and the tragic death of 12-year-old Dashane Santana, to block left turns from Essex Street onto Delancey and to open Clinton Street as an access route to the bridge. This made it more difficult for drivers to get to the Williamsburg Bridge from the Houston Street exit of the FDR, and pushed them to Grand Street.

Since then, we’ve watched as our residential neighborhood has been turned into an on-ramp to the Williamsburg Bridge. The drivers who come through, honking in frustration at the traffic, do not live here, or work here, or shop here — they are just trying to get out of Manhattan. And despite a petition last year signed by more than 1000 residents, letters of concern from our elected officials, and a resolution from the Community Board, no progress has been made by DOT to improve the situation.

Grand Street Democrats members Jeremy Sherber and William Rockwell presented two short-term ideas to relieve pressure at Clinton and Grand. One would force Grand Street drivers to drive past Clinton and make turns on Norfolk or Essex Street to get to the bridge, while allowing Clinton Street drivers to continue to feed onto the bridge. The idea here is that both streams of traffic might flow more smoothly if they were not forced to merge together.

The other idea would be to stop the Clinton Street approach south of Grand Street altogether, making sure drivers from downtown used larger streets like Allen and Essex to get to the bridge. In this scenario, the number of cars on Grand would not decrease, but the flow of traffic would improve, hopefully getting rid of the angry honking.

But even these suggestions don’t address the real issue: these streets are not appropriate for bridge traffic at all. That’s why DOT needs to explore changes that take commuters off these residential streets altogether and push bridge traffic to larger, more appropriate avenues on the perimeter of our neighborhood.

Essex Crossing construction is in full swing and will bring thousands more residents to this neighborhood, along with significant new retail that will draw shoppers, car service pick-ups, and delivery vehicles. The streets directly involved today in feeding the Williamsburg Bridge are facing a major increase in local traffic in 2018. To support the residents and businesses in these new developments, DOT must find some other way for drivers to get to the bridge.

Many residents spoke Thursday about other ideas that need to be explored, including a safer, dedicated left-turn lane from Essex to Delancey; moving bike lanes to streets not also used by so many cars; an exit from the FDR directly onto Delancey; better timing of traffic lights at Grand and Clinton; and a general realignment of tolls that would limit the attraction of the free Williamsburg Bridge to commuters and delivery vehicles. Undoubtedly any comprehensive solution will need to consider all of these options, and more.

So what’s next? DOT did not give any new information about its plans or offer any specific recommendations of its own. In fact, Manhattan Commissioner Luis Sanchez said that they don’t like to do full studies unless they have a baseline “normal” traffic to start with, and since Essex Crossing construction will continue for another 5-6 years, there won’t be any “normal” traffic pattern for years. District Leader Lee Berman countered that the long lines of cars, the gridlock, and the honking — these are the new “normal” for our neighborhood, and DOT can’t keep dragging its heels on producing real recommendations to solve this problem.

Thursday’s large, passionate turnout will help convince the elected officials in attendance that this is an issue of great concern to our community. Grand Street Democrats will continue to put pressure on our elected officials and DOT officials to deliver meaningful results.

There’s a lot to say about last night’s Traffic Town Hall — 175 neighbors, five elected officials, DOT officials and engineers all getting together to address the problem made for a successful meeting. But nothing’s fixed yet, the problem is growing, and we need to keep the pressure on. So we’ll have more to say later.

PIX11 provided good coverage:

Department of Transit Manhattan Borough Commissioner Luis Sanchez took questions for an hour at Wednesday night’s meeting of the 7th Precinct Community Council from residents concerned about the increased traffic on Grand and Clinton Streets.

Sanchez said DOT has looked at a bunch of different options — traffic signal timing, changes in signage on the FDR, banning a right turn onto Clinton from Grand — to alleviate congestion in this residential corridor, but has not settled on any solution. Construction, said Sanchez, at Essex Crossing and the Houston Street on/off ramps has caused major headaches and make any analysis subject to change as soon as the construction zones shift.

Bottom line: DOT does not yet have any recommendations to alleviate congestion on Grand and Clinton.

Here’s a live view of traffic in our neighborhood from Waze:

But the hundred or so neighbors who came out Wednesday were not ready to take “no” for an answer.

Several community members asked if there is nothing to do about the number of cars, can the police do anything about the honking, often late at night? Honking tickets, it turns out, are particularly difficult to issue — and create even more congestion while drivers are pulled over.

How about cameras at East Broadway and Clinton to fine drivers who block the box? It turns out there is state legislation about how many traffic cameras can be installed in New York and in what areas.

Many people had specific suggestions about how to re-route traffic to the Williamsburg Bridge. How about opening Suffolk Street northbound so there are three ways to get from Grand to Delancey? Or turn Delancey Street under the bridge into the main access point, bypassing Grand Street altogether? What if the whole neighborhood were blocked off from through traffic so that cars are pushed up Essex or even Allen? Each option got a lukewarm response from DOT’s Sanchez, with assurances that every option is still on the table.

So what will it take to get the DOT to make some real changes? We plan to continue putting pressure on DOT officials to make sure they know just how disruptive this problem is to our residential community. Right now we are working with Councilmember Margaret Chin to hold a Traffic Town Hall on Thursday, January 11, where we’ll have a chance to make clear to DOT officials that the traffic madness has to stop.

The Department of Transportation has been dragging its heels on the traffic problem on Grand & Clinton. That’s why showing up at the NYPD 7th Precinct Community Council on Wednesday at 7:30 pm is so important.

7th Precinct Community Council
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
7:30 pm
19½ Pitt Street (between Broome and Delancey)

Our local NYPD Community Council has gotten DOT Manhattan Commissioner Luis Sanchez to attend its monthly meeting this week. These Community Council meetings are a great neighborhood resource but are usually lightly attended. We urge you to attend on Wednesday to make sure Mr. Sanchez knows how important this issue is to our quality of life.

We also continue to work with Councilmember Chin to get a larger public meeting in January. We need to push this from as many angles as possible to get DOT to address this problem.