Roosevelt Island Main Street Vehicle Traffic More Closely Monitored and Regulated With Public Safety Officer at the Motorgate Ramp Helix During Farmers Market and More Stop and Yield Signs on Roadway

It looks like the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) and it's Public Safety Department are paying greater attention to vehicle traffic regulation and pedestrian safety on Roosevelt Island's Main Street recently. Roosevelt Island 360 sends in this picture of a Public Safety Office directing traffic at the Motorgate ramp helix by the Farmers Market Saturday morning around noon and reports.

Can't figure out why but directing traffic at helix. We have no light there that is broken.

Image From Roosevelt Island 360

Followed up with:

I asked. Lot of recent complaints at the helix. Drivers too fast. Nice officer did not catch name.

There are also these Stop and Yield signs placed all along Main Street to prevent vehicles from speeding and injuring pedestrians.

Good job by RIOC and the Public Safety Department.

According to the Public Safety Department's web page:

Traffic and Public Areas

            In establishing RIOC, the State Legislature gave the agency specific authority to “prescribe rules and regulations governing the operating or stopping of vehicles on Roosevelt Island.”  (Ch.899, Laws of 1984, sec.13)

Roosevelt Island has some of the strictest traffic regulations of any New York community, chiefly due to its physical layout.  The Island’s single roadway must be kept clear at all times for emergency access, particularly to the hospitals at the north and south ends of the Island.   Traffic enforcement on Main Street protects pedestrians, keeps traffic flowing and the street open for emergency vehicles.   Still, RIOC buses, Transit Authority buses, vans for the disabled, and some 5,000 cars manage to share Main Street each day.

Ticketing  Authority 

Public Safety officers have the same authority as the New York City Police Department or the enforcement agents of the Department of Transportation’s Parking Violations Bureau (PVB) to issue summonses for parking violations and moving violations.   

The summonses are issued in accordance with the New York State and City law, and responses should be submitted to the appropriate authority, be it the PVB or the State Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV), with fines collectible by those offices.   As in other parts of the City, appeals must be made through the appropriate agency, PVB or DMV, not through RIOC or the Public Safety Department. 

Towing 

Illegally parked cars that have been ticketed are subject to towing by V.I.P. Towing, a Long Island City - based firm under contract to RIOC.   Once a vehicle is towed, its owner must pay the towing company charges (about $100), plus any storage fees as well as the summons fine.   These charges are collectible by the tow company and the PVB respectively.

I am advised that the fines collected for traffic and parking violations do not go to RIOC or Roosevelt Island but to NYC.

Also, has anyone noticed that the cars parked in the new spaces on the West Channel Road in Southtown on Saturday nights are there all night? I thought those spaces were just for short term parking - not more than 2 hour and not for overnight parking.