One would think, given Mr. Pittelli’s history, that he would not seek out a job that required him to stand in the middle of four lanes of oncoming southbound traffic on Varick Street in Lower Manhattan, as thousands of cars, cabs and delivery vans lurch and cough their way forward.
But none of that seemed to bother Mr. Pittelli, one of six pedestrian traffic managers hired by the Hudson Square Connection Business Improvement District to ease the backed-up traffic near the Holland Tunnel between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m.
“You need to have a good temperament,” he said, over the blare of music from car radios and the high-pitched taxi whistles of the Trump SoHo doormen. “You’ve got to try to think what people are going to do.”
On a recent afternoon, Mr. Pittelli, who retired three years ago after a 28-year career with the city’s Department of Transportation, directed traffic with a few understated flicks of his neon gloves. His work conditions were far from ideal: the black metal plate he stood on smelled of hot tar and bent and shook with every car or truck rumbling over it. Still, Mr. Pittelli nonchalantly waved cars forward toward the mouth of the Holland Tunnel, or eastward toward Canal Street, shooing them from intersections and protectively waving through pedestrians. Then he repeated the same steps, over and over, always displaying remarkable calm.
The improvement district hired the workers, mainly retired police officers, from Sam Schwartz Engineering, and placed them along Varick Street at Houston, Charlton and Vandam Streets starting in the fall.
Ellen Baer, president the Hudson Square Connection Business Improvement District, said that the streets improved immediately. On typical days between July and October, the number of blocked crosswalks dropped by 43 percent and the number of blocked intersections fell by 61 percent. The traffic officers were so effective that the district made the program permanent in February.
“It’s saner. It’s quieter,” Ms. Baer said. She added that office workers felt less like they were “working in the middle of a highway.”
Mr. Schwartz, who has also placed traffic managers in Times Square for the Department of Transportation and along Second Avenue for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said other business improvement districts were exploring hiring officers. Mr. Schwartz said Hudson Square, situated next to the Holland Tunnel, was an especially difficult traffic area and “one of the toughest traffic jams in New York City.” He said he hoped conditions would continue to improve.
“Can we cut down on the amount of horn honking?” he said. “We haven’t eliminated it all. But the numbers are really good.”
Mr. Pittelli said that since he started directing traffic downtown in December, he had seen his worst traffic on the Thursday and Friday before the Passover and Easter holidays. He had to stroll through the neighborhood and calm himself down before getting on the subway to go home to Maspeth, Queens, he said. But he noticed that, overall, traffic was better.
“These people would never be able to cross the street on the crosswalk,” he said. “It’s much calmer. If we weren’t here, this would be an absolute mess.”
