The NYPD focuses on managing vehicular traffic to improve overall safety

Balancing the needs of foot and motor traffic in the area around the World Trade Center has become more manageable in recent years. And the deployment of more than a dozen site-trained New York Police Department traffic enforcement agents (TEAs) is at the core of that effort.

The latest details about the NYPD’s Lower Manhattan traffic command were presented to Community Board 1 this week. Inspector Patrick McCarthy, who heads the command, explained that his team focuses on managing vehicular traffic as a means to greater overall traffic safety.

McCarthy said that NYPD officers meet daily as part of the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center’s (LMCCC) Permit Enforcement Taskforce. There, the various agencies responsible for safety and construction-coordination matters -- including the NYPD, Department of Transportation (DOT), Department of Buildings, and other agencies -- can specifically address traffic congestion, pedestrian flow, and other ever-changing issues.

Through the taskforce, which is part of the LMCCC’s City Operations program, NYPD can determine how best to deploy the traffic command team, which includes 16 agents, two dedicated tow trucks, 10 DOT Highway Inspection and Quality Assurance (HIQA) inspectors. The agents work two weekday shifts and one 12-hour weekend shift to maintain downtown traffic movement. The taskforce reviews real-time traffic reports and can track incidents that allow instant agent deployment in the field.

The NYPD also works with the Port Authority to coordinate traffic safety around the WTC site. The addition of the Port’s pedestrian-management team, which was formed with the help of traffic consultant Sam Schwarz Engineering, has significantly improved crossings on Church and West Streets, among other areas.

McCarthy says that his team often considers the Port’s pedestrian-safety program to ensure that TEAs are being deployed to areas where they are most needed. Traffic management also includes areas of West Street where the Port’s “east-west connector” -- the new pedestrian concourse -- is being built under the highway as a replacement for the Vesey Street Bridge.

“In a perfect world we’d like to have pedestrian managers on every corner,” said McCarthy, noting that his team already is planning for traffic management in new upcoming work zones, like along Chambers Street and the Hudson Trunk Main project near the Holland Tunnel approach.

“We’re always going to err on the side of safety -- for the pedestrians and the motorists,” he said.