Ossining tries a two-way street to prosperity

“The problem with the traffic is they”™re driving muy rapido,” business owner Digna Vicente observed while cutting a customer”™s hair on a recent weekday afternoon at Margot Salon in downtown Ossining.

She was referring to the vehicles passing her shop on Spring Street, where village officials this month began a six-month pilot project that has opened a formerly one-way stretch of the commercial street to two-way traffic. The change has forced Ossining residents to break a long-accustomed habit when navigating Spring Street, which for more than 50 years has been limited to one-way traffic in the two blocks from St. Paul”™s Place to its intersection with downtown Main Street and the heart of the city”™s business district.

Ingrid Richards, Ossining”™s manager of downtown and economic development, said the village reopened the street to two-way traffic “to increase the visibility of the Spring Street businesses through proper traffic circulation.” She said the change was especially designed to make it easier for visitors driving through downtown, where turns off Main Street onto Spring Street have been prohibited.

New signs on Spring Street in Ossining alert motorists to new two-way traffic.

A little more than one week into the traffic experiment, “We haven”™t had much feedback yet,” Richards said. “It seems to be working well and people are using it.” She said the pilot project will be reviewed by village officials in about six months to determine whether the new traffic alignment should be permanent.

The project, for which the village retained Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates, a San Francisco-based transportation planning firm, as technical consultant, is part of a comprehensive economic development strategy to revitalize a downtown that, like many other village Main Streets in the U.S., has seen a decades-long decline in numbers of shoppers and businesses. As in other Westchester communities, officials in Ossining want to attract new restaurants and retail stores and other commercial tenants by developing more downtown residential units like the Stagg Group”™s newly built five-story, 31-unit apartment building at 147-155 Main St. Called the “We Can Do It” site, it had been a vacant lot used for parking since a fire destroyed the property more than 15 years ago.

Nearby, at 33-35 Spring St., village planners have approved a two-story, 15-apartment addition to a two-story building, the former site of The Village Tavern, being redeveloped as an independent corner grocery store. Ossining business owners said the grocery could benefit from having the street outside its door reopened to two-way traffic.

“People are still getting used to it,” said an employee at Miller”™s Cleaners at 38 Spring St. in the pilot project zone. “They”™re driving the wrong way, on the wrong side of the street.”

“I”™ve seen the village change,” said Philip Gioio, a 77-year-old Ossining apartment building landlord who, while banking on Spring Street, stopped to point out the narrowness of the new two-way stretch and the fast speeds at which cars travel it. “Things have to change. But it worked so well one-way for so long,” he said.

“When I grew up in the ”™40s and ”™50s,” said Gioio, “people came from White Plains to Ossining to shop. ”¦ You don”™t need another apartment building here (downtown). You need an anchor” business.

“You”™re so used to something,” said Ed Klotz, the owner of 23-25 Spring St, which includes Margot Salon and several business offices. “People get accustomed. It”™s going to take time for it to work.” Klotz said a pedestrian crosswalk is needed on Spring Street, where senior citizens living downtown frequently cross to the village post office.

“You want people to come down here, you want prosperity here, you”™ve got to give them a place to park,” said Klotz. Gioio and the owner of a dry cleaning business on Spring Street agreed that lack of parking space is a major problem even without more residents and new housing development downtown.

“If it works, it works,” Klotz said of the village”™s economic revival strategy. “I just don”™t want to see it become another Tarrytown here, where you can”™t find parking at all.”