School crossing guards and parents are relieved to see action on a plan to help control some of the congestion along McLean Avenue.

Yonkers police spent a month monitoring traffic hot spots like St. Barnabas Elementary school. The area around the school has become highly congested due to higher enrollments, new arrival/dismissal protocols and a heavier traffic volume due to school buses and cars parked illegally.

"We are grateful for the support from Mayor Spano and Councilman Rubbo in advocating for our families and surrounding community," said Michael J. Deegan, the superintendent of Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of New York.

Crossing guard Ernesto Zambrano says he sees the chaos that happens from the heavy traffic. He has even experienced it firsthand. “I started crossing at the middle of the street to help parents and their kids and a car just blows the line,” Zambrano recalls. “It hit me to the ground, and she just kept going.”

This happened within a school zone not far from the school. 

One parent called the traffic “absolutely horrendous.”

“I live roughly five minutes away, and it’s taking me an hour to drop my kid off and go back home,” says Frank Vushaj.

Maureen Clerkin compared the traffic nightmare to gridlock in midtown. “It goes back down to Martha and Glover. It looks like midtown Manhattan gridlock,” says Clerkin.

The city of Yonkers has a multi-agency plan to relieve heavy traffic from Kimball to Woodlawn avenues and Sedgewick to Central Park avenues.

It includes retiming traffic lights around the school for a smoother traffic flow, additional school crossing guards, speeding up the arrival/dismissal process for students who ride the bus. There is also a recommendation to adjust a school bus stop near McLean and Sedgewick to Harrison Avenue, which may relieve more blocked traffic.

Vushaj says he is happy to see the city acknowledge the problem and is optimistic about the plan.

“When there are cops and officers here like there were in the beginning of the year, it does seems to feel a little bit better and people tend to respect their authority,” says Vushaj.

Yonkers police will continue to monitor the traffic flow and will determine if additional resources are needed.