Traffic is flowing much easier these days when City Island’s seafood restaurants and marinas draw visitors on summer weekends.
This is the first year that NYPD traffic agents have been placed in strategic locations around the island and its approach on City Island Road to ease traffic congestion as the community’s 34 restaurants draw its faithful customers.
Members of the City Island Civic Association and Councilman Jimmy Vacca met before the summer with 45th Precinct Captain Russell Green to discuss traffic, and that conversation yielded a big improvement in traffic control, Vacca said.
“For years, the traffic nightmare City Island residents and visitors face each summer presented unmet challenges. Recommendations for improvement fell on deaf ears,” Vacca said. “This year, Captain Green met with me and City Island residents early on to anticipate problems, learn from the past, and be proactive.”
The island has seen significant improvement in traffic flow on even the warmest and busiest weekends on City Island due to the ne strategies, Vacca said.
The work of traffic enforcement agents, which are stationed at various points in the fire lane and busy intersections on the island, move traffic along, Vacca said. Vacca called the agents’ presence “invaluable,” and he thanked Borough Commander Carlos Gomez for stationing them on the island during summer weekends.
The agents control traffic at the Rodman’s Neck Traffic Circle approach to City Island in Pelham Bay Park, keep motorcycles and cars off the fire lane, and prevented gridlock as cars leave restaurant parking lots, said CICA Traffic Committee chairman Paul Nani.
The agents are on the island on Friday evenings, as well as Saturday and Sundays from approximately noon to 11 p.m, Nani said. The traffic agents have supplemented the work of the 45th Precinct, which in previous years provided the only traffic control on the island, Nani stated.
Also having high words of regard for the allocation of resources were CICA president Bill Stanton and vice-president Barbara Dolensek.
