By John Nugent
Two and a half years ago, my family moved to Rye for its charm, the Sound, and the 39-minute commute to Grand Central. What we didn’t move here for were the cars.
They are everywhere — on the Post Road, on Purchase Street, idling in front of Jerry’s Deli. To walk or bike anywhere in Rye is to exist in a state of low-grade anxiety, a constant negotiation with a two-ton machine. The right-of-way, in theory, belongs to pedestrians. In practice, it belongs to whoever has the most momentum.
Rye is one of the wealthiest communities in the country — with a Metro-North station, 454 acres of parks, five schools within cycling distance of nearly every home, and a downtown with actual historic bones. We possess every structural advantage struggling cities spend decades trying to build. And we’ve done almost nothing about it.
Historic buildings have been demolished for parking. Surface lots now occupy land that once held architecture worth preserving. Meanwhile, cars have gotten bigger — drive down any street and count the seven-seat SUVs, each carrying exactly one person. We’ve built our entire infrastructure around this. We have become as addicted to our cars as to our smartphones — and with the same denial.
The good news is that momentum is building. Rye’s Traffic and Pedestrian Safety Committee is actively engaged, and I’ve recently had the chance to share RyeForward.org — a citizen-developed strategy — with Mayor Nathan. The proposal is grounded in metrically proven approaches: dedicated pedestrian sidewalks by Rye’s train station, a roundabout at Boston Post Road and Purchase Street, a downtown pedestrian plaza, and safe routes to all five schools. These aren’t experiments. They’re what has already worked elsewhere.
The solutions aren’t radical — they’re proven. Hoboken, N.J., has gone seven consecutive years without a traffic death by implementing Vision Zero: 20 mph speeds, protected bike lanes, and raised intersections. Injuries are down 41 percent. Carmel, Ind. built 152 roundabouts — with injury crashes dropping 47 percent even as the population tripled. Boulder, Portland, Madison, Decatur — cities of all sizes have made the same decision: streets are for people first.
Rye is 5.85 square miles. You can cross it in 20 minutes on a bike. RyeForward.org doesn’t ban cars — it proposes that by 2036, 50 percent of local trips are made on foot or bike.
If we continue as we are, we’ll be a sad cross between a speedway and a parking lot. The charm that drew people here will keep eroding — one surface lot at a time, one near-miss at a crosswalk at a time, one seven-seat SUV at a time.
The bones are here. But is the will?
John Nugent is a Rye resident and creator of RyeForward.org, a citizen-developed 10-year master plan for pedestrian and cycling transformation in Rye.
