Public security

Deadly Times Square attack highlights NYC pedestrian safety

Fears of a terrorist attack prompted officials to ring many of the pedestrian plazas of Times Square with squat steel posts capable of stopping a speeding vehicle.

But those barriers only cover so much ground. There were none of them Thursday at the corner where a man steered his car onto a busy sidewalk and began barreling through crowds of pedestrians, running down 23 people and killing one before one of the metal posts finally stopped him.

The bollard that stopped the car driven by Richard Rojas likely saved lives by preventing it from entering an even more densely packed pedestrian plaza, and some New Yorkers are wondering whether the barriers should be deployed on many more sidewalks, much as they are now at sports stadiums and airports nationwide.