You can divide drivers in Peekskill into two types. Those who know there’s a traffic problem, and the traffic problem. Every day, on every road, it’s hardly news that you’ll find people double parked near the center lane, u-turning absolutely wherever, blasting through stop signs, or racing down residential streets like they’re on Route 9.
On Highland Avenue, it’s all of the above. Which is why I was grateful a few years back when a pedestrian crossing sign was added to the crosswalk on Highland at Pemart Avenue. It was needed. A ton of people cross there, heading to Uriah Hill to pick up and drop off kids, to and from the bus stop on Division, to the deli on Garfield, the Laundromat on Pemart, the Tuesday morning food pickup at the parking lot across the street from the Baptist church.
Granted, few cars did ever actually heed the sign’s message. “STATE LAW, Yield to Pedestrians within Crosswalk.” Perhaps they were going too fast to read or contemplate why there might be a tall reflective street sign standing in the middle of the road. And perhaps that’s why they also don’t acknowledge me, a not small guy standing at the curb with a good size dog and giant stroller, waiting for the chance to cross. (Maybe one in fifteen cars does finally stop to let me pass, though their friendly waves tend to suggest that’s due to general courtesy more than the sign or state law.)
Still, despite the sign’s inability to get people to yield, I appreciated that its location might serve as a deterrent against the speeding and recklessness that are as ubiquitous to Highland Avenue as empty Taki bags and that one massive off-leash dog’s massive poops. I thought adding a structure in the middle of the road might give people pause, if not for their fellow citizens, then at least for the well-being of their own cars and trucks.
I was wrong. From the moment it was posted, that poor sign has been battered and bent, dented and scratched, to the point that there must be dozens of cars around Peekskill carrying some amount of that sign’s DNA. And why not? Wrecks at that intersection are not infrequent. Fender benders mostly, but occasionally worse, as cars try to enter the Highland 500 Raceway from both sides of Pemart, as other cars are u-turning in the middle of the intersection when they realize they took the wrong exit off Bear Mountain Parkway. And who can forget the young lady about two years ago who drove her car straight into the front of the laundromat, parking about three quarters of the way inside the place? Believe me when I tell you that the city is having to come out to fix and replace Stop and One Way and Speed Limit signs that get run over at this small section of road all of the time.
Which brings us to today. I’m sad to report that our brave little sign is no more. It has crossed whatever rainbow bridge there is for signs, put out of its misery once and for all by some driver who either doesn’t know about speed limits, or suspects that there’ll be no repercussions for breaking them. The conclusion to this story was so inevitable, it may as well have been foretold.
And yet, as I mourn the passing of my poor ineffectual friend, I’m already hoping we get a new one. Call me a sign-masochist perhaps, but I have to think there’s some good to come from it, that having something there at the crosswalk is at least slightly better than nothing.
Because let’s face it. When it comes to traffic in Peekskill these days, slightly better than nothing feels like the most we dare to hope for.
Joshua Weber has lived in Peekskill since 2019. He teaches college, watches baseball and pleads with his toddler to take a nap. When he first moved to Peekskill, he said he was stunned at how many people were driving the wrong way on his one way street. He complained and Peekskill added a couple new signs and moved a few others for drivers to see better. It worked, and he was impressed at how responsive the city was to that issue. “I think there are solutions to these things, and that some are very practical. I’m not just looking to complain.”