More than 50 intersections along the West Side of Manhattan will be hardened against vehicles after this week’s deadly terror attack, city officials say.
Some of the concrete barriers were already being installed at the Hudson River Greenway Thursday afternoon, two days after a rental truck barreled down a pedestrian-bike path along the West Side Highway in what authorities have called a terrorist attack.
In total, 57 intersections from 59th Street to the Battery will get concrete barriers to help protect pedestrians and cyclists from vehicles, the officials said.
Of the intersections, 31 are vehicle access intersections and 26 are pedestrian access intersections that lead to the riverside path breached in Tuesday’s rampage.
The state Department of Transportation will add concrete jersey barriers to the vehicle access points, while the city Department of Transportation and NYPD will add cement “sugar cube” barriers to the pedestrian access points.
The barriers will be concrete for now, but it's likely some of them will be replaced by steel bollards eventually.
On Wednesday, Police Commissioner James O'Neill said the city was looking into adding additional barriers on the Hudson River Greenway. Rob Reiter, a pedestrian safety consultant who worked with the company that installed bollards in Times Square, called the lack of bollards around the busy bike path a "safety oversight."
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Lawmakers, too, are calling for additional safety measures in pedestrian areas. U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand announced the Stopping Threats on Pedestrians Act, or STOP Act, on Wednesday, which would create a new grant program at the U.S. Department of Transportation that would provide more funding for the installation of traffic barriers.
A similar bill was introduced by a bipartisan group of New York congressmen last month.
And New York City councilman Ydanis Rodriguez said he introduced a similar measure at the local level earlier this year after a driver hopped a curb in Times Square and ran down several people while allegedly intoxicated by PCP.
