Warburton neighbors call for traffic-calming efforts

The owner of one totaled vehicle, Melissa Jean Miller, the mother of a 9-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter, has lived on Warburton Avenuefor nine years, and has dealt with four incidents involving her cars, two of which were totaled. When asked to estimate how much the hits and losses had cost her, Miller said, “We have insurance, thankfully, and I’m not driving a Tesla, but probably $20,000. Which, considering how many incidents we’ve had, isn’t a ton. But it’s also the time issue. Now I have to find a car.”

Miller added that she has seen drivers pass her son’s stopped school bus on Warburton, even when its stop signs were out and lights were flashing.

In a May 12 letter to the editor of Rivertowns Enterprise, residents of Warburton Avenue and the surrounding area noted that speed cushions, crosswalks, rumble strips, and pinch points are common solutions to the problem.

Bess Seewald, a teacher who lives on Warburton Avenue and wrote the letter, said that this is not the first time she has had conversations about traffic along Warburton. Those prior discussions, she said, provided the specific solutions that were called for in the letter.

“We’ve spoken to traffic engineers, so… the reason that was all in the vocabulary is because it’s all from prior research,” Seewald said.

In 2018, Seewald said, she emailed then Hastings Police Chief Anthony Visalli about the problems, including cars speeding through a neighborhood that was home to many children. In response to Seewald’s email, Visalli noted that the Village’s Transportation Working Group had spent two years addressing traffic concerns in Hastings, including along Warburton, and added that speed bumps were an unlikely option due to the high volume of traffic along the road.

Following the collisions on May 12, Seewald said a traffic speed monitor was installed along Warburton and police patrols increased in the area.

Also among the neighbors asking for a solution is Jack Acree, a Warburton Avenue resident since 2016. He said part of the problem is the change from open road to a residential community.

“When you travel between Washington Avenue and at least the Yonkers border, there’s not a single crosswalk, there’s nothing that slows people down at all,” Acree said. “And, certainly it’s a pretty dense residential area for that first quarter of a mile, first half of a mile. Especially those first three blocks, it’s single-family homes… there’s a lot of people and a lot of children that live around there, and it’s seemingly ‘no holds barred’ in terms of what’s been going on with the traffic and the speed in that area.”

Acree, who has a 16-year-old son, added that he, too, had seen an increase in police presence around south Warburton in the wake of the May 5 accidents. Even with more surveillance, though, Seewald felt a more sustainable solution should be explored.

“The thing about police is that they have a million things to do, they can’t be here all the time,” Seewald said. “It would be great if the County and the Village could get together to find a mixture of solutions that exist elsewhere and put them together in a creative way that works effectively for this particular area.”

According to Westchester County Superintendent of Road Maintenance Bill Makar, the County handles paving, road maintenance, and painting along Warburton Avenue, but enforcement remains in the hands of the Village. Village Manager Mary Beth Murphy confirmed that the installation of road features such as rumble strips, speed bumps, and crosswalks is at the County’s discretion.

In February 2017, the Transportation Working Group presented to the village board a pair of proposals that would have included the installation of rumble strips on Warburton south of Washington Avenue. According to the presentation, the strips would vibrate under the tires of cars going above the speed limit, but would not vibrate under the tires of cars obeying the speed limit. In March 2017, the village board sent feedback — “Take out rumble strips from both” proposals — and recommended the installation of a stop sign and a crosswalk at the corner of Pinecrest Drive and Warburton Avenue.

In a 2019 email exchange, Warburton Avenue resident Gabriel Cé shared suggestions from the Transportation Working Group with now-retired County Traffic Engineer Kevin Roseman. Included in those suggestions was the installation of crosswalks at the corner of Pinecrest and Warburton, and at the corner of Division Street and Warburton. Roseman told Cé that a crosswalk on Warburton at the intersection with Division would not be feasible because of a lack of curb space on the west side of Warburton. As for the crosswalk at the intersection of Pinecrest and Warburton, Roseman told Cé that the low number of pedestrians there would limit the utility of a crosswalk.

Regardless of whose authority the road falls under, Seewald said the residents’ concern was more with safety than regulatory authority.

“We’re not interested in telling anybody how to do their job; no one likes that,” Seewald said. “And it’s not about vilifying any bureaucratic individual or entity… I think our mayor and our board of trustees are very competent and have done a lot of great things for Hastings. But the neighborhood feels like this is an issue that has been ‘back-burnered’ for far too long, and it’s time to prioritize safety for pedestrians and reduced speed.”

On the afternoon of May 12, another accident took place when a 76-year-old driver rear-ended a 65-year-old driver at the corner of Warburton Avenue and Pinecrest Drive. The 65-year-old was turning left onto Pinecrest.