08/27/2026
As the management team at HealthyFit for Women, we support NYSDOT’s overall goal of improving safety along Route 1 for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists. There are elements of this proposal that make sense, including speed reduction measures, improved crosswalks, the proposed pedestrian improvements at Mamaroneck Avenue/Harbor Island Park, and raised crossings near the Rye Neck schools.
Our concern is that reducing Boston Post Road to a single through lane in each direction, particularly in Rollplot 4 from North Barry Avenue to the Rye border, may create new safety and traffic problems that have not been adequately addressed.
Based on the crash data presented, this segment appears to have relatively low crash activity compared with other portions of the corridor, yet it is being proposed for one of the most significant roadway changes. We believe NYSDOT should clearly demonstrate the segment-specific safety benefit that justifies reducing four travel lanes to three and explain how the new configuration will function under actual daily conditions.
What Happens When the Single Travel Lane Is Blocked?
This is one of our biggest concerns.
Boston Post Road is an active commercial corridor. School buses stop. UPS, FedEx, Amazon, food distributors, maintenance vehicles, garbage trucks, taxis and rideshares make stops. Businesses receive deliveries. Vehicles break down. Emergency vehicles need to get through.
Today, traffic has the ability to move around many of these temporary obstructions. Under the proposed configuration, what happens when the only through lane is blocked?
If a delivery truck needs 10 or 20 minutes to make a normal delivery, is every vehicle expected to remain stopped behind it? Or will drivers attempt to maneuver around the vehicle by entering the bike lane or crossing into another portion of the roadway?
That creates an obvious safety concern for the very cyclists this project is intended to protect.
The same concern applies to school buses and other vehicles making temporary stops. If drivers become impatient because there is no available travel lane, we are concerned that some will attempt to pass through or across the bike lane. NYSDOT should explain how these predictable conflicts will be prevented and who will be responsible for enforcement.
A protected or designated bike lane is only safer if the roadway design does not routinely encourage motorists to enter it to get around stopped vehicles.
Increased Cut-Through Traffic Creates Another Safety Problem
We are equally concerned about what happens when drivers decide not to use Boston Post Road at all.
Traffic congestion on this stretch is already a daily challenge. The signal at North Barry Avenue frequently causes backups extending toward CVS during normal peak periods. When there is an accident on I-95, school traffic, a funeral or wake, flooding, construction, or another disruption, congestion increases dramatically.
Local drivers know the surrounding streets, and they already use them to avoid Boston Post Road when it backs up.
If Route 1 becomes significantly more congested, where will that traffic go?
It will not simply disappear.
Drivers trying to get to work, school, appointments or I-95 will look for alternate routes through surrounding residential streets. Some of those streets are precisely where our elementary schools, families, children, pedestrians and neighborhood cyclists are located.
That raises an important question: Are we improving safety on one roadway while unintentionally pushing faster, frustrated cut-through traffic onto smaller neighborhood roads and streets surrounding our schools?
Any safety analysis of this project should include traffic-diversion modeling identifying which local streets are expected to absorb displaced traffic and what effect that additional volume will have during school arrival and dismissal.
Accessing Businesses Safely
HealthyFit serves hundreds of members each day, many arriving before work, during lunch hours and during the evening commute.
Reducing the roadway to one through lane also changes how motorists will enter and exit businesses along the corridor. We want NYSDOT to specifically evaluate the interaction between vehicles turning into commercial properties, through traffic, and the proposed bike lane.
Drivers entering and exiting parking lots will necessarily cross the path of cyclists. During heavy congestion, motorists may also be waiting for an opportunity to turn while traffic queues behind them.
We respectfully request that NYSDOT demonstrate how these turning movements will safely function during peak traffic and how visibility between motorists and cyclists will be maintained, particularly when traffic is backed up or larger vehicles are present.
Parking Remains a Significant Concern
The current report incorrectly identifies zero existing curbside parking spaces adjacent to HealthyFit. In reality, there are approximately seven on-street spaces regularly used by HealthyFit members as well as patrons of 25 North.
Those spaces are part of the actual parking supply serving this area, regardless of how they were represented in the initial documentation.
We respectfully request that NYSDOT conduct an on-site, block-by-block and frontage-by-frontage parking inventory with affected property owners and businesses, publish corrected existing, proposed and net parking totals, and evaluate the impact that removing those spaces will have on HealthyFit, 25 North, neighboring businesses and nearby residential streets.
Removing parking may also create additional circulation as drivers search surrounding streets for spaces, another potential impact that should be considered.
Real-World Conditions Need to Be Studied
We encourage NYSDOT to evaluate this configuration under the conditions residents and businesses actually experience, including:
Rye Neck school arrival and dismissal
School buses stopping along the corridor
Commercial and residential deliveries
Vehicles temporarily blocking the single travel lane
Morning and evening rush hour
I-95 accidents and closures that divert traffic onto Route 1
Funerals and wakes that generate unusually heavy local traffic
Flooding and severe weather
Emergency response
Vehicles entering and exiting commercial parking lots
Increased cut-through traffic on surrounding residential and school streets
These are not unusual hypothetical situations. They are regular occurrences along this corridor.
Stakeholders Need to Be Part of This Process
Finally, we were disappointed to learn that HealthyFit, our landlord, 25 North and several neighboring businesses were not directly notified of previous stakeholder meetings or public open houses despite being among those most directly affected by the proposed changes.
We respectfully request that impacted property owners and tenants receive direct notification of future meetings and that meaningful stakeholder participation occur before final design decisions are made.
We Support Safety. We Question Whether One Lane Achieves It.
We want to be very clear: we are not opposed to improving Route 1.
Speed reduction, safer pedestrian crossings, better crosswalk visibility and targeted improvements in areas with documented safety concerns deserve serious consideration and support.
Our concern is specifically whether reducing this portion of Boston Post Road to one through lane in each direction actually makes the entire surrounding area safer.
Before implementing the Rollplot 4 road diet, we respectfully ask NYSDOT to demonstrate, with traffic and safety analysis, what happens when that single lane is obstructed, how the bike lane will be protected from vehicles attempting to pass stopped traffic, where displaced traffic will go, how surrounding school and residential streets will be affected, how businesses will remain safely accessible, and how emergency and service vehicles will operate.
A project intended to improve safety should not solve one problem by creating several new ones.
We support thoughtful, targeted improvements to Route 1. We simply believe the one-lane configuration requires significantly more analysis, community input and real-world consideration before moving forward.
Thank you for your consideration.
The Team at HealthyFit
