The traffic congestion around the Holland Tunnel has grown dramatically over the last few years. So has the area's pedestrian death toll.
Eight pedestrians have been killed in traffic along Kenmare and Broome Streets since 1986, when the toll for eastbound traffic on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was doubled and the toll westbound was eliminated. Tractor-trailers intended for interstate expressways began clogging the narrow streets of SoHo and TriBeCa to take advantage of the free outbound ride in the tunnel.
With this congestion have come lethal statistics. Traffic statistics back to 1983 show there was only one death in the three years before the change. Even on Canal Street, which had traffic trouble before then, the death rate has gone up, though less sharply.
"Death and maiming have become commonplace," said Caroline Stone, a leader of the SoHo Alliance, a neighborhood group seeking a solution to the problem. "I got involved in this issue when I saw an 18-wheeler run over an elderly man."
Canal Street is lower Manhattan's main cross street. From the east, traffic pours across the Williamsburg, Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges and the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. The sole escape to New Jersey on this route is the Holland Tunnel, with the nearest alternative, the Lincoln Tunnel in midtown, several miles north.
Continue reading the main storyBesides the rise in pedestrians' deaths, the choking traffic causes many less serious accidents, travel delays, fights, a cloud of exhaust fumes and a cacophony of blaring horns at all hours.
"It's the world's most expensive traffic jam, blocking the movement of all people and goods in lower Manhattan, with a terrible impact on residential neighborhoods," said Manhattan Borough President Ruth W. Messinger.
The afternoon rush at the Holland Tunnel rivals that at the Queensboro Bridge as the worst congestion in Manhattan. Average speed on Canal Street slows to less than 5 miles an hour. "You can walk faster than that," remarked Joseph DePlasco, a spokesman for the city Transportation Department.
Snarls crop up unpredictably at other times, extending into Greenwich Village, Little Italy and Chinatown, and even backing up the entire length of Canal Street and over the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn.
Frustrated drivers squeeze to create lanes where they do not exist, drive backward out of jammed intersections and use the sidewalks for detours. The frustrations can lead to violence. Ms. Stone recalled that after an egg was thrown at a honking truck, the driver and a friend mistook a bystander for the egg-thrower and beat the man to the ground in front of his two horrified children.
"People get so crazed," said Ann Arlen, head of the environmental committee of Community Board 2. "They throw crockery at drivers."
Barring utopian solutions like a new tunnel or more mass transit, critics demand the restoration of two-way tolls and the posting of more officers at intersections.
But the problem remains unsolved by government -- from Congress, which changed the toll system, to the city, which pleads lack of money for more agents and exchanges accusations with Port Authority tunnel officials. "I can't count the number of meetings we've had with agencies," said Howard Harrington, assistant manager of Community Board 1, "but nothing seems to happen." BRUCE LAMBERT
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