By ANDY OLIVAN
Safety concerns caused by scaffolding around two elementary schools were the main topic of discussion at a meeting of the Youth and Education Committee of Manhattan’s Community Board 1, held at the city Municipal Building on September 12.
Committee members Rosa Chang and Tricia Joyce were the main speakers. They presented concerns about the scaffolding and improper safety measures at two downtown schools: P.S.150, the Tribeca Learning Center, and at P.S. 234, the Independence School. Pedestrian safety was a particular concern with heavy traffic on streets that do not have necessary safety signs. Both school locations have scaffolding that poses a risk to children and parents, the committee members said.
“The scaffolding is not going to be coming down till spring as per Josh Adams at the SCA (School Construction Authority), which is, you know, really problematic,” said Joyce about P.S. 150. “I think we need to just lean on them a little bit. In terms of the signage, this was supposed to be here.”
“We do need to have a traffic enforcement agent there until we can get the situation with the lights sorted out,” said Chang about P.S. 150, as she explained the outreach attempts for the Department of Transportation (DOT). “But they do think that they can try to help us with at least a signal in that location as a short-term thing, but they are going to have to do a deeper dive into it.”
“We all new we had six years before that school was built,” said Joyce about P.S. 150. “It was approved in 2016 and the number one thing we said when they chose that location was safety and that they would have to build the receiving plaza. They would have to have traffic agents every single day.”
Joyce and Chang both expressed frustration that the scaffolding is taking up one-third of the south sidewalk of P.S. 150, which makes it challenging for parents to pick up their kids because of debris on the ground. They said they’ve never had a permanent crossing guard in place for that school, it’s always been an emergency fill-in. They said there needs to be a safety agent present in the crosswalk intersections to ensure that cars are following the stop signage protocols.
In regards to P.S. 234, it faces similar issues with scaffolding, but it’s in a slightly better situation of having most of its scaffolding scheduled to come down at set times.
“The sidewalk shed around the play yard on the street at 234 is going to come down in October; the sidewalk shed and scaffolding abutting the school will remain in place till May 24,” said Joyce who believes that it will improve conditions for student drop-offs by October.
Community Board 1 of Manhattan has 50 volunteer members who live or work in lower Manhattan. Members of the board are selected by the Manhattan Borough President with half of them recommended by the City Council Members that represent the 1st Council District. Committee and board meetings are held monthly and are open to the public. They go over specific issues relevant to Lower Manhattan such as land use, education matters, local budgets, or monitoring city services.