The Saw Mill River Parkway: Our Crazy Old Uncle
By Michael Gold
If Westchester is one big family, then the Saw Mill River Parkway is the crazy, old, dangerous uncle who comes over your house every so often to disrupt everybody’s life.
You know this guy. The one who suggests you adopt a racoon to help get rid of your garbage or feed your dog to a coyote to cut down on the pet bills. The guy who lights a small fire in the middle of your living room to entertain your kids.
The parkway seems to bring out the worst in drivers. I have seen drivers demonstrate all types of weird activity on the road, such as trying to make an illegal turn off the parkway onto Grant Street in Pleasantville as oncoming traffic whizzes past, putting themselves, other motorists and pedestrians in mortal danger.
Once, this past autumn, when I was sitting in my car waiting at a red light, I saw a teenage boy cross the parkway against the light. As I watched him dodge 2,000 pounds of roaring metal machines hurtling down the road, I froze with shock. In what universe did the kid think this was a smart thing to do?
Thankfully, he made it across without injury. Once I caught my breath, I wanted to get out of my car, storm up to the boy and yell at him, “What the hell were you thinking?”
Accidents occur with alarming regularity. My neighbor across the street has told me he hears the collisions. Our local school crossing guard has told me about the recklessness of the drivers speeding down the parkway like demented bowling balls.
The Consumer Insurance Blog once posted this from an article in Forbes magazine: “Drivers on the winding, heavily traveled Saw Mill River Parkway frequently reach speeds of 78 to 85 miles per hour between the towns of Elmsford and Hawthorne, despite the 50-mile-per-hour speed limit.”
When I was a kid, my Dad used to take me to our local speedway for the demolition derby, to watch cars deliberately ram and destroy each other beyond repair. The last car still running wins. That’s what the Saw Mill feels like far too often.
What is it about this road that brings out the worst in drivers?
We can only speculate. But what we can do is look at ideas that might bring a measure of civilization to this Wild West of a parkway.
Here are some not very serious schemes for slowing down the drivers and helping prevent injury or worse, along with one very practical and inexpensive proposal.
- First, help pedestrians safely cross the parkway by placing jet packs on each side so they can fly over the traffic. Accomplishing that could also be done with hot air balloons, a Star Trek transporter beam or giant pogo sticks. Another great idea would be to recruit TV wrestling stars to fling people across the parkway on giant frisbees.
- Slow down the traffic by planting trees directly on the roadway every half-mile to make it an obstacle course. Just imagine driving down the parkway like you’re at the Indianapolis 500 and seeing a giant oak suddenly loom in front of you. How’s that for an incentive to slow down?
- Give drivers a lollipop for staying under the speed limit every week. Other incentives for good driving could include giving out lottery tickets, free pizza, rubber duckies or the chance to win a vacation in the Arctic Circle every winter.
Maybe that last idea wouldn’t work so well. So, putting that silliness behind us, here are a couple of serious ideas for addressing the problem.
- Build a pedestrian bridge over the parkway. If we compare the cost of paying a crossing guard every school day with the expense of building a bridge, I’m sure the crossing guard would still be cheaper.
- Lowering the speed limit might not be a deterrent either, because the drivers most likely to drive too fast are the least likely to pay attention to the new law. This leads me to my one decent and relatively cheap idea. Install a traffic camera on the light to photograph drivers who blast through the speed limit or try to make illegal turns onto Grant Street. The penalty for breaking the speed limit or ignoring the prohibition on turning could be made severe. Charging more than $200 for violations could work. Drivers will remember that. This idea has the added benefit of increasing revenue, possibly a lot. With COVID-19 and depressed tax revenues, government could use as much help as possible.
Most crazy uncles know what to do if they get slapped on the wrist.
Pleasantville resident Michael Gold has published op-ed articles in the New York Daily News, the Albany Times Union and other newspapers.
