Before Attempting to Top Opponents, U.S. Open Players Must Beat Traffic

As his driver fought through rush hour traffic, the car broke down, and Smyczek was left stranded on the highway shoulder.

It took about 20 minutes for Smyczek to flag down another driver headed to the Open.

“He pulled over and said, ‘Hey, you guys need a ride or something?’ ” Smyczek recalled the driver asking. Smyczek arrived in time for his match against James Duckworth on Court 17. (Smyczek won in four sets.)

The Open poses many challenges for the tennis elite, from surviving 140-mile-per-hour serves to withstanding New York City’s snark, but perhaps the most fundamental challenge is getting there.

Nearly all of the players stay in Manhattan hotels. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center may sit about 10 miles from Times Square, but it can take an hour or more in crawling traffic. That means that 543 of the world’s best tennis players from 64 countries have to scramble through expressways, tunnels and bridges before they even step on the court.

The commute is coordinated from a room behind Arthur Ashe Stadium. The numbers are dizzying: 175 cars, 75 buses, 1,300 rides a day, 1.1 million miles logged during the tournament.

Dozens of the drivers are former law enforcement officers. “They can deal with the traffic — and player anxiety,” said Roy D. Fugazy, the president of Fugazy Sports & Entertainment, the transportation company that works with the Open.

The traffic slog is part of what makes the Open distinct from the other major tournaments, which are set in more peaceful locations, like Wimbledon, Melbourne and the outskirts of Paris.

Here, as New Yorkers know all too well, the commute does not always go so well.

Dmitry Tursunov, a Russian player ranked 34th, said his car did not show up Tuesday at his hotel to take him to Queens, forcing him to find a car pool.

“We’re talking about the U.S. Open, which spends a ridiculous amount of money,” he said. “A lot of players complain about it, a lot of players have problems with transportation.”

When Open organizers surveyed the players about their experiences after previous tournaments, officials said the top complaint was always the same: transportation. Those complaints make their way to the desk of F. Skip Gilbert, a senior official with the United States Tennis Association. He is responsible for, among other things, making sure all of the players make it through the tunnels and across the bridges in time for their matches.

“It is thankless, and we know that there are going to be times, thanks to a car breaking down, or weather, or incredible traffic or something goes on, you’re going to run a minute late and you’re going to expect to get criticized,” Gilbert said. “And if you do, you smile and say, ‘Yes, we’re very sorry and we’ll try not to do it again.’ ”

He and his team manage the commutes from a small office on the stadium grounds, where nearly a dozen dispatchers pore over color-coded spreadsheets.Multilingual workers field questions and remind players of their pickup times. Radio dispatches fill the air from dawn to dusk.

Fugazy, the contractor who oversees the cars, said that when he began handling the Open transportation in 2006, his team had to travel among about 15 pickup locations. Now, they pick up athletes at more than 200 places.

He said he worked to match players with chauffeurs who will suit their temperament. “You have certain players that have their nuances, their needs, and we’re managing their expectations, so we marry them with certain drivers,” Fugazy said.

This year marked the debut of a software system designed to manage the Open’s fleet of 250 player vehicles and buses.

The software creates a profile for each player that includes hotel addresses and match times. Players typically ride in their own car, but Fugazy sometimes has to resort to car pools, sparking occasional grumbles.

Mornings are the busiest times as cars from the Open swarm around hotels — like the Grand Hyatt, the Waldorf-Astoria and the Le Parker Meridien — in search of athletes toting large racket bags. Players are advised to allow 45 to 60 minutes for the drive. But there can be additional obstacles. Like Labor Day weekend traffic, and special trips to the airport for losing players.

Nevertheless, tennis officials are willing to bend the rules for top players, like Andy Murray, Fugazy said.

“We know if Mr. Murray needs an extra car, we’re probably more likely to provide that because he’s earned the right to have that kind of consideration,” Gilbert said.

Some players are sanguine about the traffic woes.

“I think they’re trying their level best,” said Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi, a 12th-ranked doubles player from Pakistan. “But, unfortunately, just New York City, man.”

Unfortunately, a bad commute can affect a player’s game. Caroline Wozniacki, a Danish player ranked eighth, said her car was late Thursday. She still won her match in two sets, but she said the drive threw off her routine.

“I was a bit stressed after my first round,” she said. “When there’s a little bit of traffic, and then the car is 10 minutes late, then all of a sudden, you’re like, under pressure.”

Ben Rothenberg contributed reporting.

N.H.T.S.A. Reports Increased Traffic Deaths

More people died on United States roads in 2012 than in 2011, according to a report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Motorcyclist and pedestrian deaths each increased for the third year in a row, and deaths of bicyclists reached the highest level in six years. Over all, however, traffic deaths continue to be at historic lows.

Fatalities in 2011 were at their lowest level since 1949. The 2012 increase could not be attributed to Americans driving more, because motorists drove nearly the same number of miles in 2012 as they did in 2011, according to the report. Highway deaths increased to 33,561 in 2012, according to the safety agency’s 2012 Fatality Analysis Reporting System, known as FARS. That is 1,082 – or 3.3 percent – more than the 2011 figure. The majority of the increase occurred in the first quarter of 2012, which the report notes was the warmest in history.

The estimated number of people injured rose as well, by 6.5 percent, in what N.H.T.S.A. described in its report as a “statistically significant change” from 2011. There did not seem to be one single issue that explained the increases – according to the federal agency, which released the data – and some crashes associated with traditional risk factors even fell. For example, the number of young drivers involved in fatal crashes continued to decline.

Here are some of the conclusions the agency reached:

¦?Of those killed in passenger vehicles in 2012, 52 percent were not wearing seatbelts.

¦?Pedestrian deaths were 6.4 percent higher than in 2011, and they increased for the third consecutive year. Most occurred in urban areas, away from intersections, at night, and many involved alcohol.

¦?Fatalities among motorcycle riders increased for the third year as well and were 7.1 percent higher than in 2011. The data showed that in states with no universal helmet law, 10 times as many riders who died were not wearing a helmet than in states that had such a law.

¦?Among bicyclists, deaths increased 6.5 percent over 2011, reaching their highest level in six years. Most of these deaths occurred in urban areas and were away from intersections.

¦?In crashes involving drunken drivers, deaths increased 4.6 percent from 9,865 to 10,322. In the majority of those crashes, drivers had a blood alcohol concentration nearly double that of the legal limit.

¦?Although the number of people killed in crashes related to distracted driving decreased very slightly – from 3,360 in 2011 to 3,328 in 2012 – the number who were injured increased. Those were up 9 percent from 387,000 in 2011 to 421,000 in 2012.

¦?There is good news in more recent government data. According to early estimates, the FARS data shows a slight decrease in fatalities for the first half of 2013.

More Traffic Fatalities in New York City in 2012

A majority of those who died were pedestrians, accounting for 148 of the 274 deaths. But most of the increase since 2011 was attributable to automobile driver and passenger deaths. There were 73 of those deaths in 2012, up from 50 the year before.

The city also recorded 18 cyclist fatalities, down from 22 in 2011, and 35 motorcyclist deaths, an increase from 32. For the third year in a row, the city said, no pedestrians were killed in crashes with cyclists.

Within the data-driven Bloomberg administration, street safety figures have been trumpeted as a signature achievement in recent years, as interventions like expanded bike lanes and pedestrian plazas have remade much of the city’s transportation system.

Officials were quick to point to the long-term trend of reduced fatalities, noting that even though the 2012 figure exceeded the 245 deaths in 2011, it still represented the fourth fewest traffic deaths on record since 1910.

The city’s traffic fatality rates were less than one-third of the national average and half the rates of other big cities, officials said. Preliminary national figures for 2012 also suggested an increase in fatalities.

Connecting the statistics to recent calls to install speed-tracking cameras across the city, the Transportation Department said that speeding had accounted for about 30 percent of the deaths. Fatalities associated with hit-and-run crashes increased to 47, an increase of 31 percent compared with 2010.

According to the department, pedestrians who are hit by a car traveling at 30 miles per hour have an 80 percent chance of surviving. But those hit at 40 m.p.h. or more have only a 30 percent chance of survival.

“It’s a matter of physics,” Janette Sadik-Khan, the city’s transportation commissioner, said in a phone interview.

Though the city has long lobbied for a speed camera bill, proposals have languished in Albany. A budget package in the State Assembly has authorized the city to install speed cameras, but a final budget deal for the state has not yet been reached.

Amid persistent prodding from advocates who are often critical of the city’s traffic enforcement, calls for the cameras have intensified in recent weeks, as officials like Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner, have encouraged the state to approve their use.

But the plan has faced opposition from the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.

“Many speeders are unlicensed, some are operating under the influence and sometimes they are fleeing crime scenes or carrying weapons,” the group’s president, Patrick J. Lynch, said in a statement. “Cameras let all those dangers slip by.”

He said that money allocated for speed cameras would be better spent in hiring more officers.