Roger Thomas, Head of Central Park Precinct NYPD Auxiliary Police Makes an Appearance

This update is for Friday, June 24. When I got into the crosswalk at just before 10 am, a big black suburban was standing next to the barrier. As I approached, the window rolled down and I spotted Roger Thomas, President of the Central Park NYPD Precinct Community Council and leader of the Central Park NYPD Auxiliary Police in the driver's seat. I first met him two days ago at the NYPD Central Park Community meeting and this morning he had come to see first-hand the situation in the crosswalk.

He also told me he had done some research on the 10 MPH speed limit and had learned that this speed is just advisory and not mandatory, as are all such yellow speed signs on NY roadways. Enforceable speed limit signs are on white backgrounds. In all the research I had done on school speed zones, speed limits of 20 MPH and 15 MPH were commonly mentioned but never 10 MPH, which I had always considered unreasonably slow. This makes the designation of this crosswalk as a school speed zone even more important since if it were so, the posted, the enforceable speed limit would be 15 MPH.

We chatted for a few minutes and he sped off. In a few minutes, Officer Vasquez showed up again and spent an hour in the crosswalk doing enforcement work. Between 10:00 am and 11:19, I shot 33 clips, mostly with Officer Vasquez in the crosswalk. Often people stopped to thank him or ask for directions and when they did, the bikes continued to fly thru the crosswalk at the red stoplight when the white safe-to-cross light was on and pedestrians were in the crosswalk. When I left, he left, too.

Today's screengrab is a man with 2 kids being swarmed in the middle of the crosswalk when the stoplight is red and the safe-to-cross light is flashing yellow while Officer Valazques is occupied trying to stop other cyclists.