Tarrytown Seeks Help to Control Crowds at Halloween Parade

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July 9, 2024

By Rick Pezzullo—

The Sleepy Hollow/Tarrytown area has long been known as Halloween country, and it seems more people than ever have been visiting in recent years to see what all the scary fuss is about.

For about the last 15 years, the Village of Tarrytown has been hosting a Halloween Parade, with attendance noticeably growing each year. It’s now gotten to the point where village officials are seeking help on how to better control the influx of tourists.

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At its June 17 meeting, the Tarrytown Board of Trustees authorized the retention of a professional engineering traffic consultant to develop a major event traffic plan for the parade.

“Last year was the largest we’ve ever seen here,” Mayor Karen Brown said. “Cars were parked in places I’ve never seen before. In an effort to keep our residents and visitors safe, we’ll make a plan in and around the village.”

In April, the village issued a Request for Qualifications and Request for Proposals on a Major Event Traffic Plan for the Halloween Parade and the July 4 fireworks. In early June, village officials interviewed three potential firms and chose Stantech Engineering of New York City at a cost of $17,000.

However, it was decided Stantech would only focus on the Halloween Parade since the Independence Day fireworks show on the waterfront is an area where traffic flows one way in and one way out.

“It flows slowly, but it flows,” Brown said. “On the other hand, the Halloween Parade was the entire village.”

Besides developing a traffic plan, Village Administrator Richard Slingerland said village officials will be encouraging visitors to take mass transit.

This year’s Halloween Parade is scheduled to be held on October 26.

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