Today was Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend and the park was bustling with pedestrians and vehicles. I had planned to spend the day personally soliciting signatures for the petition so I started out early to make letter-sized copies of its poster. When I got to the crosswalk at about 11 am, all the posters on both sides of the crosswalk were intact and had not been taken down or destroyed by rain.

I could not resist the urge to shoot more video, focusing on larger vehicles moving thru the crosswalk against the light. Sure enough, a huge fire truck came plowing thru the crosswalk against the red light at a slow speed and without flashing lights with the letters "22" in the rear. That was about 2 pm. A concession vendor's truck actually stopped as did a CPC vehicle with a horse trailer, several NYPD vehicles, and a couple of CPC golf carts.

For a time, I tried to stop the onslaught by standing in the intersection and yelling "Stop! Red Light!" while the red light was on. This is effective for about 60% of the traffic. The ordinary tourists would stop and most of the NYC resident-types on CitiBikes and ordinary bikes would also. About a third of the horse-carriage drivers and pedicab drivers would stop, too.

Then I began talking with pedestrians with dogs and babies, old folks sitting on the nearby park benches, and those who seemed to be afraid while in the crosswalk to see if they agreed that the crosswalk was dangerous and asking if they would sign. This led to a lot of meaningful engagements and more supporters of this proposal, including one financial contributor to the CPC.

THE UPSHOT OF ALL THIS

During the CB7 Parks and Environment committee meeting on June 20, 2020, there was quite a discussion about changing the culture of the pedestrians and vehicles in the park to make each more respectful of the other's rights. The situation we have now is pure chaos where nobody's rights are respected. And it's not just a matter of rights, it's a matter of life and death.

While this petition is focused on a school speed zone and a speed reducer, its overall objective is to make the crosswalk safe, understanding that the danger in the crosswalk is to pedestrians, who are very often children, seniors, pregnant or disabled, not to the people operating the vehicles.

Changing a culture is not something you do by making a resolution or waving a wand. It is something you do incrementally in reasonable steps that everyone agrees on.

Let's start with CPC. As I said in the headline of my last update: IF CENTRAL PARK CONSERVANCY WILL NOT FOLLOW THE TRAFFIC RULES, WHO WILL? This is a really easy first step because Roger Mosier, Director of Operations at the Central Park Conservancy has already agreed to do this. If the CPC vehicles will stop at every red light, day and night, even when there are no peds in the crosswalk, then others are going to wonder "what's going on?" At the very least, they will stop and look around.

The next easy step is with the horse-drawn carriages and the pedicabs. These vehicles, in the individual sense, operate in the park at the discretion of CPC. The CPC should work with the owners of the concessions that provide these services and the licensing agencies to ensure that these vehicles observe the traffic rules as stringently as the CPC vehicles do. Operators of these vehicles should lose their employment if they can't follow the traffic rules. CPC vehicle operators should be empowered and encouraged to report violations of horse carriage and pedicab drivers.

Today I noticed that after my stunt of stopping traffic, certain drivers of both the horse carriages and the pedicabs watch me making videos and stop at the crosswalk now. They talk to me at the crosswalk. They say "See, I stopped."

These drivers all congregate in the same locations and rumors spread like wildfire. Once the operators, the licensing agencies, and the CPS make it clear that the traffic rules have to be obeyed to a "T", the culture will follow. If CPC vehicles, carriages, pedicabs, and NYPD vehicles will all stop, certainly ordinary tourists and residents will stop. That only leaves a small group of crazies that will bend to peer pressure or NYPD  enforcement, which would, at that stage, be a manageable job.

And let me say parenthetically, that the NYPD's job in the current situation is impossible. The violators are just too numerous. You would need the National Guard to deal with this situation. NYPD has much more urgent complaints in the park than vehicles speeding thru crosswalks.

We can deal with this if we coordinate access to the park based on compliance with the traffic rules. It's that simple but it takes a coordinated effort that is focused on groups of vehicular operators that are licensed to operate in the park.