Traffic and Safety Fears Grow in Rye Park Neighborhood — With Massive Development Projects on the Horizon

Many children in the Rye Park neighborhood can’t ride their bikes out of their driveways. 

Their neighborhood doesn’t include sidewalks, so they learn to navigate grassy berms on their way home from school. Some are coached by their parents to memorize license plates when a driver whizzes by. 

“I’d love our kids to be able to ride their bikes on the street, but right now it’s not safe to do so,” Colin Bristow, a Rye Park parent, told The Record. 

In Rye Park, a section along the city’s northern tier, misbehaving drivers are a longstanding concern. 

Residents allude to friends and family whose cars have been hit while turning onto High Street from Grandview and Evergreen avenues, or to higher profile incidents, like when a speeding driver hit a parked car and flipped it into a nearby yard.  

And things may now get worse. Nearby construction projects threaten to increase traffic, and possibly the frequency of bad incidents. 

The neighborhood is located between Purchase Street and Boston Post Road, both high traffic city corridors, near the Port Chester border.  

Drivers hoping to avoid traffic are often tempted to cut through the neighborhood on Grandview and Evergreen avenues, Bristow explained. And since those drivers are less likely to live in the area, their lack of a “vested interest” in Rye Park contributes to higher and more dangerous speeds, he said.  

Drivers using Rye Park as a traffic bypass pose a public hazard, residents say — and they fear it’s only going to get worse. 

Rye Park is on the forefront of major change. 

The nearby Rye Country Day School recently proposed a massive expansion of their Boston Post Road Campus. 

Especially concerning, though, is the long-vacant United Hospital’s redevelopment just over the Port Chester border, where Boston Post Road Owner LLC — a partnership between Rose Associates Capital Group LLC and BedRock Real Estate Partners LLC — has begun preparations for a multiuse complex. 

The complex’s initial plans already indicated significant change for the surrounding area. But Boston Post Road Owner LLC’s most recent proposal brings the prospective development to over 1,000 residential units, a 120-key hotel, more than 19,000 square feet of commercial space, and approximately 1,200 parking spots. The plan also includes a bypass road from the busy Boston Post Road onto High Street. 

The project had a traffic study completed, but it doesn’t account for the increased population density of the proposal’s latest iteration.  

Today, as the United Hospital site is under construction, Rye Park residents contend with contractor vehicles lining their streets and house-shaking dynamite blasts once or twice daily. 

Patrick McGovern, a Rye Park resident of 31 years, remembers he and his neighbors first organizing around the traffic problems in 2014 and raising their concerns with the city in 2015. McGovern has since turned into the de facto leader concerned about cut-through traffic, serving as a liaison between his neighbors and city officials. 

In 2018, the City Council agreed to test traffic changes in Rye Park for a two-month period during the fall, including the closure of Evergreen and Grandview avenues where they connect at High Street.  

“It was amazing,” McGovern told The Record.  

Once drivers got used to the closures, the speed of traffic slowed down — it brought life to their streets, McGovern said.  

“For the kids to be able to ride their bikes or rollerblade … it was terrific,” he added.  

That traffic test ended years ago, but McGovern, Bristow, and those of their neighbors concerned about cut-through traffic consider a permanent reinstatement of those closures a major goal — especially ahead of the United Hospital redevelopment. 

In response to residents’ continued concerns, the Rye police department observed traffic patterns and conducted speed measurements in the Rye Park neighborhood from Oct. 25 to Nov. 13, 2025. 

Sgt. Christopher Salguero told The Record that police noted that 25 percent of drivers did not comply with the speed limit, though the police recorded “zero high-risk numbers” in their observations. 

Salguero said he is familiar with the neighborhood’s worries and confirmed that the PD will continue normal operations and enforcement in Rye Park.  

Though it’s been a long journey, McGovern remains optimistic that his neighborhood’s concerns will be addressed. He is hopeful about working with new Mayor Josh Nathan, who was sworn into office on Jan. 1.  

Nathan, a Democrat, told The Record that he first learned about Rye Park’s traffic concerns during his campaign, talking with area residents. He ran on the tenet of “comprehensive planning,” or preparing for Rye’s future, but explained that it goes hand-in-hand with addressing immediate resident concerns. 

“What do we need to do next year to address things so that things are safe and enjoyable for that part of town? And then … what’s the longer term?” Nathan posed. 

He recently visited McGovern at his home to talk about those concerns and observe its traffic, where Nathan said he saw cars “flying through” the neighborhood. While he stood in McGovern’s kitchen, Nathan even experienced one of the nearby site’s dynamite blasts. 

“Scared the hell out of him,” McGovern said.