Huguenots for Safe Streets Advocates for Pedestrian Safety

By Annie Gombiner

This year, Mr. Restrepo, a New Rochelle High School social studies teacher, and a passionate collection of students founded Huguenots for Safe Streets, an advocacy group dedicated to improving pedestrian safety. 

The group believes that New Rochelle’s pedestrian infrastructure, especially near New Rochelle High School, is unsafe. On his very first day of teaching last September, Mr. Restrepo noticed two dangerous incidents within the span of only thirty minutes: “I saw a student almost get hit at the corner of North Avenue and Eastchester. Not long after, I witnessed a car speeding onto incoming traffic, with the police in hot pursuit. There is no reason why someone should speed through a downtown when we can implement speed and traffic calming measures, common throughout downtowns around the world.” Many students involved in the group have either seen or experienced similar dangers. Sophomore Jose Angulo, the vice president of Huguenots for Safe Streets, explained, “People speed down the streets near the high school and are not very cautious. I have a lot of friends whose parents don’t let them hang out near North Avenue because they think the streets are unsafe.” Sophomore Mia Estimos, the social media coordinator, additionally noted, “I almost got run over the other day. I was walking, and I thought the car was going to slow down, but it sped up, so I had to run across the street.”

Their anecdotal observations about New Rochelle’s pedestrian safety have also been quantifiably confirmed. Piper Genkin, a New Rochelle High School alum, completed research on walkability on Quaker Ridge Road last year for AP Research using the Walking Sustainability Index (T-WSI). She quantified walkability with several factors such as amount of trees in an area and evenness of sidewalks. Those factors then contributed to a grade which indicated walkability. Based on her results, Genkin determined that Quaker Ridge Road was not walkable. 

In light of these dangers, to improve pedestrian safety and reduce traffic, the club has two main goals: installing a protected bike lane on North Avenue and adding another crosswalk in front of the bus stop across from Jack’s Friendship Garden.

Ideally, they want a protected bike lane, either in the form of concrete bollards or street parking where parked cars serve as barriers, along North Avenue spanning from NRHS to the LINC. Gabriela Ceja, president, stressed the need for a lane: “If you’re on a bike and you go on the sidewalk, people are walking. If you go on the street, there are cars that are impatient.” Mr. Restrepo added, “There is no reason why all these kids should be dropped off by their parents in cars every day and have to wait to move around independently until they’re sixteen. Biking forces kids to think more critically and gain independence.”

Presently, there are two crosswalks relatively close to the bus stop across from Jack’s Friendship Garden. The group believes that the current crosswalks are inconveniently located, so many students do not use them. “People are naturally going to use the desired path,” explained Mr. Restrepo. “People don’t want to have to walk all the way to Chicken Joe’s to cross the street when the high school is right in front of them.”

Their proposed goals align well with other infrastructure projects currently underway. Most notably, New Rochelle will soon begin construction on the LINC, a local street and linear park that will replace most of Memorial Highway, improving pedestrian opportunities. In the late 1950s, Memorial Highway was built directly through a Black neighborhood, fragmenting the community. “Our streets and infrastructure have historically been designed to marginalize people of color,” noted Mr. Restrepo. “Women, people of color and kids are most typically pedestrians, and current infrastructure makes it difficult for them to move around.” 

Huguenots For Safe Streets meets on every other Wednesday in Room 1118.