By Emily Sachar
Newsday, February 10, 1987

Messenger Louis Perez had delivered his package and was walking on LexingtonAvenue, near 44th Street, back to his office when a motorist zipped pasthim yesterday, nearly knocking him over.

Perez, 19, had been forced to walk part of his route in the street becauseof construction that made the sidewalk impassable.

"There's a lot of these construction things going on," Perez said yesterday."You've always got to be walking in the streets and things like that. That'sdangerous."

That danger is just one of the hazards pedestrians face day in and outas they wind their way through the city. For most pedestrians, constructionactivity was the number one complaint, followed by the fear of bicyclists,according to an informal [informal = biased and prejudiced - M]survey.

"There is nothing you can do about it," said Rick Cerrone, 32, executiveproducer of a sports talk show on WNEW Radio. "In the last two weeks I'veseen about five incidents where people either had to rush back to get outof the way or were almost hit (by bikes). That's a big problem."

Cerrone said he was not convinced that the task force formed yesterdayby Manhattan Borough President David Dinkins to make things easier forpedestrians would make walking any safer.

"What is needed is creating laws or stricter enforcement of those laws,because in my opinion it's like a free-for-all," he said.

Sandy Gilinson, 31, said that people passing out literature and sidewalkpeddlers were her major sources of discomfort. "I don't run into too manybicycles. I run into a lot of delinquent people that are hanging out onthe street," she said. "I consider that a problem."

Standing in the middle of Times Square passing out leaflets for theChurch of Scientology was Eric Zimmer, 30, who said, "I hadn't heard therewas a problem."

Roy Cross, 22, a messenger, said pedestrians should not view his bicyclingthrough mid-Manhattan as a problem.

"The people have got to understand that we're not out there to hurtnobody or hit nobody," he said. "Sometimes people walk and they don't lookwhere they're going."