Proposed Left-Turn Light on 63rd St. Draws Spirited Debate

The Department of Transportation wants to add a left-turn light to the intersection of East 63rd Street and Second Avenue, with the aim of adding a pedestrian crosswalk. As the monthly October meeting of Community Board 8’s transportation subcommittee made clear, the proposal is drawing spirited debate.

As first reported by the Upper East Site blog, the off-ramp from the FDR Drive sits just above the East 60th Street cutoff for congestion pricing, making it an already crowded thoroughfare for drivers coming from the Queensborough Bridge and trying to avoid tolls. A red left-turn light would certainly reduce turning time for drivers using the left-hand lane, although it would also give pedestrians a safer place to cross.

The proposed changes were laid out in a September letter from the DOT to CB8, and expanded upon during the committee’s Oct. 8 hearing.

Gregory Haas, who presented to the community board, said that the “lack of a signalized crossing makes this a pedestrian-unfriendly location.” In fact, he noted that there used to be a pedestrian crosswalk there until about 2012, when officials determined that the intersection remained dangerous enough to decommission it. Haas acknowledged that the turn was well-trafficked by drivers.

He then outlined what the changes would mean, in terms of turning time and time spent at the light; drivers would essentially have 24 fewer seconds to turn.

The transportation committee’s co-chair, Chuck Warren, was self-evidently skeptical. “This is gonna be a problem. . . . You’re gonna get a lot of [driver] backlash, perhaps, on that,” he said.

Dylan Yen, a tech consultant and vocal online critic of DOT policy, showed up at the meeting to vent about the changes. “I don’t understand why this is happening. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he said, echoing what he told Upper East Site.

Haas then sparred with Yen, saying that he “would beg to differ that [the intersection] works. . . . It’s an accident waiting to happen. As an agency, as a whole, we try not to hem in pedestrians for the benefit of the cars.”

Marjorie Russell said that she generally wanted to “agree with Dylan,” and instead proposed creating two left-turn lanes instead of one, ostensibly to speed up traffic flow.

Russell seemed to have choice words for both car drivers and pedestrians, saying that some pedestrians made “crazy” passes along the intersection, while surmising that some drivers would simply ignore a new crosswalk and “walk” signal.

Yet Craig Lader, another CB8 member, took the side of the DOT. “I understand the concerns that people have, but at the same time, we are a city of pedestrians,” he said. He said he was opposed to “anywhere [with] barriers that prevent pedestrians from being able to cross streets.”

CB8 member Judy Schneider took issue with how the turn signal’s roll-out has been conducted, and was pointed with the DOT. “You’re presenting it to us as a fact. You did not come to us before you had the plans to do this work,” she said.

Jennifer Ines, another DOT rep at the meeting, essentially apologized to Schneider and said that they had scheduled a presentation as soon as they could.

The East 63rd Street debate—and Schneider’s comments—recall an earlier one that sprang up around the DOT’s implementation of stoplights on Third Avenue’s bike lane back in April, with residents weighing similar tradeoffs.

Upper East Side City Council Member Julie Menin revealed that she hadn’t been consulted on that project, instead learning about it from a New York Times article. “Local residents are troubled by the lack of transparency, communication, and solicitation of community feedback that did not occur before the speed-reduction plan was implemented,” she wrote at the time to DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez.

Reached for comment regarding her stance on the proposed left-turn light, Menin told Our Town the following: “As this intersection is one of the first for drivers when exiting the 59th Street Bridge, DOT should review this location to determine whether it should be reverted to a configuration that better supports traffic flow and continues to make our streets safer for pedestrians, drivers, and cyclists.”