City orders drivers to slow down on these two Queens streets

The city has reduced the speed limits on Northern Boulevard and Rockaway Boulevard. Photo via Doug Kerr/Flikr

By Rachel Vick

Drivers cruising down two busy Queens roadways will have to slow down in the coming months, the Department of Transportation announced Tuesday.

The DOT is reducing the speed limit on Rockaway Boulevard between 150th Avenue to 3rd Street from 40 mph to 35 mph. On Northern Boulevard between 114th Street to Glenwood Street, the speed limit will go from 30 mph to 25 mph 

They are among nine streets across the city where the speed limit is dropping by 5 miles per hour. The changes are part of the Vision Zero initiative to reduce roadway deaths. 

“Speeding is a leading cause of traffic fatalities.” said DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg. “We are reducing speed limits on some of the city’s most crash-prone corridors, and growing our speed camera program at a rate that will make our system the largest in the world.”

Speed cameras along the streets will be reprogrammed so that warnings can be issued for violators during the first 60 days of the new speed limits.