Controversial Bollards Sprout on Myrtle Boulevard

  by Judy Silberstein

Those red and white plastic stumps sprouting in the middle of Myrtle Boulevard represent the latest attempt by Town of Mamaroneck to solve the many problems with the intersection at Myrtle Boulevard and North Chatsworth. Anthony Paddock, head of the Chatsworth Neighborhood Association representing residents in the nine apartment buildings declares it "the most dangerous." According to Supervisor Valerie O'Keeffe, "Older people and people with baby carriages complain the most," but residents have been unhappy with the intersection for a long time.

Traffic consultants from Buckhurst, Fish and Jacquemart, the firm that helped the Town study impacts of IKEA, suggested an island to narrow the road and give walkers a safe stopping point halfway across.

But the Town's first experimental island erected in May generated even more complaints. O'Keeffe recalls letters arguing, "They'll change the character of the community; oil trucks can't make deliveries to the apartments; they cause traffic jams. " Neighbors congregated at Peter's Stationary store to sign "anti-median" petitions. The Town Board of Architectural Review (BAR) weighed in with their opinions.

In response, the Town reconfigured the bollards into a narrower median that provides better vehicle circulation. Robert Immerman, an architect and founding member of the Town BAR , reports, "We're gratified that the Town listened to our comments and took them into consideration." "The neighborhood as a whole is for the median," states Paddock, and according to O'Keeffe, there have been only one or two new complaints. Pedestrians are using the medians to help them cross the wide pavement.

But does the median have to be so ugly? Town Councilwoman Judy Myers explains, "The bollards are just for testing. If we like it we need to find the funds for a permanent median." Supervisor O'Keeffe hopes that the bollards are "the predecessors of well-designed, landscaped medians. Their greenery should finish the job of neighborhood renewal begun under a federal Community Development Block Grant."

However, the green may not appear for some time. Myers points out the real possibility of major construction occurring half a block away. Work on the islands "would wait for the construction which might mess it up." That area will need to accommodate large construction machinery and vehicles if plans go forward on the six-story apartment building proposed by the firm of Forest City Daly for the parcel at Madison and Byron Place.

While they wait, the Town is already on to the next challenge: finding a traffic light pattern that allows pedestrians to navigate safely in all directions across the complex intersection but doesn't back-up vehicles all the way to Palmer Avenue.

Will the Town come up with a workable light pattern? Will the medians keep vehicles from whizzing around the corner on their way from Fifth Avenue and I-95? Will trucks stop banging into the bollards? Will the Forest City Daly project materialize? And how about the concept of a double-decker parking lot across the median on Myrtle? Watch this space for further news from the corner of Myrtle and North Chatsworth.

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