By Joseph Morales

Forest Hill Road is a busy street in the Mid-Island area of Staten Island. Along the street or within its vicinity is an elementary school, multiple parks and youth baseball fields, the CUNY College of Staten Island(CSI) along with other community destinations. Also within walking distance from the corridor are the S61, S91 and SIM31 bus routes. There is also a significant amount of residences in the area. The street is known for having very high traffic volumes due to all the community destinations in its vicinity as well as access to other major roads such as the Staten Island Expressway(I-278), Rockland Ave, Victory Blvd and more.

              Due to these conditions, State Assemblyman Michael Cusnick(D-Mid Island) as well as the New York City Department of Transportation(NYCDOT) collaborated to plan a $2.4 million sidewalk along the corridor. This is a major victory for community advocates as well as Cusnick himself, as he will leave office after 20 years in the State Assembly this January. Cusnick told the Staten Island Advance “This has been a longstanding issue that I worked tirelessly on since before the pandemic. It’s a project of necessity for a community that has had to navigate a narrow, busy thoroughfare for many years.” The NYCDOT will dedicate $1.9 million worth of funds to the project while Cusnick’s office will dedicate state funding in the amount of $500,000 for the project.

              The project will construct a 1.0 mile sidewalk between Willowbrook Rd and D street which is adjacent to the Forest Hill Rd entrance to CSI. Most of the area in which the sidewalk is being built is either in poor condition or is non-existent. This causes pedestrians to either cross the busy corridor often without a crosswalk, walk on the side of the road or even drive to access destinations that could be within walking distance. 

Parts of Forest Hill Rd where new sidewalks will be built.

Addressing these types of issues is very important to ensure pedestrian safety especially in places like Staten Island. According to a Citywide Mobility Survey done in 2019 by the NYCDOT, only 5% of all trips were made via walking, which was the lowest of any of the regions in the city that was surveyed including Outer Brooklyn, Outer Queens and the Northern Bronx. This is likely in part due to conditions similar to those seen on Forest Hill Rd, which are common in much of Mid-Island as well as the South Shore of Staten Island. Increasing the amount of walking trips on Staten Island  could help to reduce emissions as well as congestion on the Island. The latter would definitely benefit those who need to drive to get to their destinations as also according to the Citywide Mobility Survey 11% of car trips on Staten Island were two miles or less.

             On one part of Forest Hill Rd between Willowbrook Rd and Boone St, just blocks from P.S 54, across the street from the Young Israel of Staten Island synagogue and directly adjacent to two youth baseball fields, the sidewalk that is there is not in good condition and has several cracks. At Boone St, it approaches a dead end which forces pedestrians to cross Forest Hill Rd which can be very dangerous given the traffic volumes on the street at any given time. Given the the destinations along the corridor are frequented by youth, pedestrian safety conditions are critical to ensuring their safety as they are more vulnerable to incidents than adults. According to the New York City Pedestrian Safety Study and Action Plan published in August 2010, pedestrian crashes were the second-most common cause of injury deaths for youth ages 5-14 years old.  

Portion of sidewalk that will be replaced near baseball fields on Forest Hill Rd.

         The rest of Forest Hill Rd between Boone St and an entrance to the NYS Institute For Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities has no sidewalk at all on one side of the street. There is also a block at Dewhurst St where Forest Hill Rd has no sidewalk at all. 

             Sidewalks are a critical component to pedestrian safety. According to a brochure from the Federal Highway Administration, providing sidewalks or other forms of walkways alongside roadways reduce crashes caused by walking alongside the roadway by as much as 88%. Roadways without sidewalks are also more than twice as likely to have pedestrian crashes than areas with them.  

Unfortunately, the project did not extend as far as many might have hoped, as it does not extend down further to include sidewalks on both sides of the street past D Street near the New Springville Little League Field as well as a crossing between the massive Willowbrook Park as well as another large park though most of the roadway adjacent to private houses has sidewalks on that side of the street. This could have been due to funding or technical constraints. The funding part could definitely be a major factor as the city currently faces a $10 Billion deficit due to inflation and Mayor Eric Adams has asked city agencies to cut spending by 3 percent this year and 4.75 percent next year. He has even required the NYPD to cut its budget by this amount, even though it has often been spared from similar moves in the past, indicating that the city budget is not in the best shape.

             Despite the shortcomings, this project will still be a major step in improving pedestrian safety in both Staten Island as well as throughout the city. This project will help many young people including as well as others be able to enjoy all of what the Mid-Island area of Staten Island has to offer in a safe manner.

Works Cited

New York City Department of Transportation. “2019 Citywide Mobility Survey Results.” NYC.gov, https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/nycdot-citywide-mobility-survey-report-2019.pdf. Accessed 18 December 2022.

New York City Department of Transportation. “The New York City Pedestrian Safety Study & Action Plan.” NYC.gov, https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/nyc_ped_safety_study_action_plan.pdf. Accessed 18 December 2022.

Bascome, Erik. “Long-awaited $2.4M sidewalk project coming to busy Staten Island street.” SILive.com, 2 December 2022, https://www.silive.com/news/2022/12/long-awaited-24m-sidewalk-project-coming-to-busy-staten-island-street.html. Accessed 18 December 2022.

“FHWA Safety Program.” FHWA Highway Safety Programs, https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/ped_bike/tools_solve/walkways_brochure/walkways_brochure.pdf. Accessed 18 December 2022.