The department said the heavy objects, which are marked "Police Line Do Not Cross," are being scaled back in favor of interlocking gray aluminum partitions referred to as "French barriers," The New York Times reported Friday.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the wooden sawhorses are being phased out, with the last few made by prison inmates being used for street fairs and other low-stress duties.

"If you grew up in the city, at major events, those blue barriers were always a part of them," Kelly said. "It is one of those things that people just take for granted. Yellow cabs. Cabs are yellow. You go to other cities, they're not yellow."

The department now owns about 12,000 French barriers, eclipsing the remaining 3,200 sawhorses. Kelly said the French barriers are a more effective tool because they interlock and do not allow people eager to pass to slip beneath them.

"They're easier to move, " he said. "They're lighter. They're smaller."