Western Queens pols lay out massive, multi-year street safety plan
/
Western Queens elected officials and advocates unveiled a street safety plan on Tuesday which they hope will increase pedestrian and cyclist safety in the community. Eagle photo by Jacob Kaye
By Ryan Schwach
In response to a long list of pedestrian and cycling deaths in Western Queens, a group of elected officials and advocates released a comprehensive plan to make scores of improvements they believe will increase street safety in the area.
The 20-page plan, unveiled on Tuesday in Astoria, lists a host of ideas on how to make streets safer Western Queens, including increased pedestrian infrastructure, reimagined traffic enforcement, universal daylighting and traffic calming measures.
“In recent years, Western Queens has suffered heartbreak, after heartbreak, after heartbreak as one-by-one our beloved neighbors have been stolen from us owing to the city's lack of commitment to safe streets – and let's be clear, every single traffic related death is preventable,” said Councilmember Tiffany Cabán on Tuesday. “[The report] is full of common sense, easily executed infrastructure improvements that would save lives as well as advocating for certain legislative packages at both the state and the city level.”
The plan, which was authored by Cabán alongside Assemblymembers Jessica González-Rojas and Zohran Mamdani, and Senator Kristen Gonzalez, looks to create a long-term schedule and far reaching goals for fixing Western Queens’ transportation woes.
Cabán said that the plan serves as an alternative to what she claims is the city’s current approach to making the streets safer – making changes only after tragedy has struck.
“Unfortunately, it's not until tragedy happens that there's a spot change,” Cabán said. “There's not really a comprehensive, preventative proactive vision, and so this is what this aims to do.”
According to data cited in the report, traffic fatalities are up 43 percent in Queens in 2023 compared to last year, and in Western Queens specifically, there were 924 crashes resulting in 13 deaths and 939 injuries.
During the report’s unveiling on Tuesday, advocates and electeds repeated the phrase “one death is too many.”
Carmen Marina, a 50-year resident of Astoria, provided a face to those statistics. Her daughter was killed when she was hit by an SUV last May, and Marina said she wants to see changes that can prevent what she is going through from happening to others.
“We must do everything we can right now to ensure that no one else goes through what I'm going through, what my family is going through, what our friends and neighbors are going through,” she said. “We must implement protected infrastructure.”
The 20-page report separates the plan into seven steps, ranging from improvements to cycling safety to improvements for the MTA.
“The broad strokes are this: improving both bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and design, implementing universal daylighting, reimagining traffic enforcement, slowing cars and disincentivizing heavy vehicles, making the MTA excellent, reliable and universally accepted, accessible and providing for safe and sustainable e-micro mobility,” said Cabán.
Cyclist safety is among the key issues the report discusses, specifically through installing protected bike lanes and bike boulevards to create safer spaces for Western Queens’ bike riders.
According to statistics from earlier this year gathered by Transportation Alternatives, 18 bike riders were killed during the first six months of 2023 in New York City, more than the first six months of 2022 and 2021 combined.
“Crashes involving bikes most frequently happen in unconventional and unprotected bike lanes,” said transportation and open street advocate John Surico. “It is paramount that bike lanes are physically protected.”
Bike boulevards, which are “extensions of the open streets program that use innovative designs for bicycle and pedestrian priority corridors” are also among the items listed on the electeds’ shopping list.
Rendering of potential protected bike lane on 35th Street going north, which would be accompanied by a protected bike lane on 36th Street going south. Rendering by Tim Chin.
“We also need bike boulevards,” said Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas.
The plan specifically proposes a bike lane for the Queensboro Bridge, as well as a bike boulevard on 31st Avenue in Astoria, both projects they hope could be completed by next year.
Looking even further into the future, the plan proposes a bike path for the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge to be completed in 2029.
Pedestrian safety is a key issue in the report, with the hopes that plans to bring new open streets and pedestrian plazas to Western Queens will provide areas for pedestrians to walk safely away from vehicles.
The plan specifically details an Open Street at the Young Women’s Leadership School and one for Newtown Road in Astoria, planned for 2024 and 2025 respectively.
It also includes a planned pedestrian plaza for Newtown Avenue for 2027.
Newtown Road was the site of one of Queens’ pedestrian tragedies earlier this year, when 7-year old Dolma Naadhun was killed while crossing the street.
Naadhun’s death prompted a discussion and a legislative push around daylighting, which limits parking closest to crosswalks to increase visibility, another major part of the plan.
“Everybody here today is now leading the citywide call for universal daylighting,” said Laura Shepard from Transportation Alternatives.
“DOT must implement universal daylighting, installing structures that physically prevent or
discourage parking in these spaces wherever possible,” the report reads. “These physical barriers could include curb bulb outs, bollards, bike racks, and more. DOT has already daylighted hundreds of intersections in the City, but now it must prioritize pedestrian and cyclist safety and install daylighting measures universally. Western Queens can and should lead the way.”
Advocates say they already know daylighting works, citing successes on the other side of the Hudson River.
“We know daylighting works, just over the Hudson River in Jersey City and Hoboken, its significantly safer to be a pedestrian and both credit their reductions in traffic deaths and injuries to inexpensive intersection design changes, including nearly universal daylighting,” said Shepherd.
New York City has overridden a state law which requires daylighting at intersections.
“This dangerous exemption from state law limits visibility for everyone on our streets, especially drivers, preventing them from seeing people in the crosswalk,” Shepard said.
The report also includes plans to disincentivize heavy vehicles and create more traffic calming measures to get people to use other modes of transportation and limit traffic dangers.
Among the other specific plans detailed in the report through 2029, there are hopes for traffic calming in areas around busy Steinway Street and Astoria Boulevard, as well as pedestrian plazas on 30th Avenue and 34th Avenue near Dwyer Square.
“Everything is about making sure that what we're presenting to you is empirically proven,” Cabán said “It's backed by research, it exists in other places, it's things that we know we can get done.”
As for getting things done, that will include working with the DOT to implement and fund these plans.
“DOT has been very communicative partners, we had been talking for months and months and months about this,” said Cabán.
DOT, in turn, said that they look forward to reviewing the electeds’ report, and pointed to projects that have been announced and completed in recent months.
“We appreciate the elected officials’ interest in traffic safety and their support of our efforts to redesign our streets and advocacy for more automated enforcement,” said a spokesperson. “NYC DOT has delivered many safety projects in western Queens in recent years—work that has helped drive pedestrian fatalities citywide to historic lows, even as they rise nationally—and the agency looks forward to reviewing the report.”
A previous iteration of the story stated that a pedestrian plaza is planned for Newtown Road, it is for Newtown Avenue. The story has been edited to reflect this.
