Tarrytown, Sleepy Hollow Advance Safe Streets Project

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Summarizing the Safe Streets presentation

March 23, 2025

By Jeff Wilson–

There has been a growing number of motor vehicle accidents – some even fatal, including collisions with pedestrians or cyclists—in Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow, leading up to the March 20 “Safe Streets For All” workshop at Tarrytown’s Senior Citizens Center. It was the first of two meetings scheduled in 2025 to “develop a Comprehensive Safety Action Plan to prevent serious injury and death on roadways,” according to Tarrytown’s website.

A collaboration of the villages of Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow and the Public Schools of the Tarrytowns, the Safety Action Plan is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation for its Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) program. It was a key initiative from the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Action (IIJA), passed during the Biden Administration. Heading up the project planning team are three private firms: TYLin, Public Works Partners and Nelson Nygaard, with TYLin’s Kelly McGuinness as project manager. McGuinness, an avid cyclist herself, led most of the meeting, supplemented by a comprehensive power point presentation.

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Sadly, as the statistics point out, the safe streets that the committee—really all of us—yearn for aren’t so safe. According to data from the New York State Department of Transportation, during the five-year period between 2019 and 2023, the combined villages of Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow had 698 crashes involving motor vehicles, with 124 of them resulting in an injury or fatality. Twenty-six people were seriously injured and three (all pedestrians) were killed. “One traffic death is too many,” lamented McGuinness, “yet we’re actually seeing an upward trend. So we’re here today to reduce those incidents of the most serious injuries and fatalities on traffic roadways in Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown.”

Ideally, McGuinness announced, the plan will secure additional state and federal funding beyond the initial SS4A grant for the study. She stressed the importance of crafting specific construction projects in order to get more grants. “All of this will be data-driven and community-enhanced, so your input will help inform our safety strategies,” she explained. “But data only helps us so much. We don’t always know where the near misses are. We really want to understand from you; we want to listen.”

Residents can share their views through an online survey: http://bit.ly/safestreets4all. Five hundred have replied so far. Data analysis, projected on screen at the presentation, revealed that the most dangerous days—especially for pedestrians—are Mondays and Thursdays between the hours of 3:00 to 5:00 p.m, with a special focus on pedestrians. Thursdays are when 31% of crashes occur. And intersections: are where a full 85% of fatal or serious injury crashes happen. The project will be overseen by the Safety Action Plan Steering Committee consisting of municipal staff, leaders from community, organizations and crash victims’ groups that will provide guidance and assistance.

It was around the 30-minute mark of the meeting when attendees were invited to circulate among various stations around the room where they could speak with project representatives, write comments on post-it notes to stick on charts and maps. People discussed safety challenges, pinpointed treacherous areas on a map and left many suggestions, most often advocating for more sidewalks and bike lanes–and complaining about reckless drivers. In a private conversation, McGuinness described the circumstances of one of the fatal accidents. On McKeel Street in Tarrytown, a driver pulled around a car stopped in front of him and struck a pedestrian whom he didn’t see crossing there.

Final plans for traffic modifications should be completed by the end of 2025, following a second workshop in September, when the project team will provide responses to the community’s earlier feedback, including focus groups in the high school and other local gatherings.