Chelsea residents say a pandemic-related street closing is itself posing a safety hazard by delaying emergency vehicles and it needs to be scrapped.
Metal barriers at the intersection of West 22nd Street and Eighth Avenue close the block off to all but local traffic for a whopping 12 hours a day, every day.
Ambulances, fire trucks, police cars, taxis and anyone else trying to drive the block have to park their vehicles — usually in a crosswalk — and get out to move them and then stop again to put them back.
Nico McLane, 53, said the gates cost her then 89-year-old stepdad — who was suffering a medical emergency — precious minutes in getting help in August 2021 when the Uber driver picking him up couldn’t budge the heavy barriers. She had to sprint down the street to help.
“It’s a moment of panic,” said McLane, an engineer whose family has owned a brownstone on the block since 1971.
The barriers have now been replaced with lighter-weight versions.
The city Department of Transportation added the block between Seventh and Eighth avenues to its controversial Open Streets program in 2020 at the behest of some residents. The program is meant to allow for “pedestrian and cyclist use and enjoyment” or, in some cases with full street closures, for restaurants to use the roadways for outdoor dining.
But one of the only businesses on the West 22nd Street block, ironically, is a parking garage forcing drivers to move the barriers to access it.
“There is no restaurant. There is no park. There is no school. There is nobody,” said Cindy Loomis, 65, a medical researcher who lives one block west of the closed street. “I ride my bike down that block all the time. I never see anybody in the street using it.”
Opponents of the plan are circulating a petition, which has more than 1,000 signatures, for the city to open the street. In addition to safety concerns, they also cite the traffic diverted to nearby blocks.
“The effect is that they have a city-funded front yard,” said Joseph Neuhaus, 65, a lawyer who is Loomis’ husband. “The neighbors on all the other blocks have to put up with the inconvenience.”
Molly Harris, 51, an immigration lawyer who lives on the street, said the barriers cause confusion about who is allowed there and give an unwanted impression that it is an “exclusive street.”
“I think that’s extremely problematic,” she said. “I also think that 12 hours a day is a bit extreme, more than a bit extreme.”
Block resident Tom Lunke, 63, a retired urban planner, said a group of volunteers was now working on alternatives to reduce traffic on the street, including without barriers, that they hoped to present to the city this month.
“The idea of having a street that’s designed specifically to slow down cars and provide greenery and places to sit for pedestrians without the gates at Eighth Avenue, I think that’s a win-win for everybody,” Lunke said.
DOT spokesman Vin Barone said, “we look forward to exploring design solutions that are less dependent on movable barriers.”
