Speed Bumps Protecting Queens Pedestrians Most Located Near Borough Elementary Schools

That jarring feeling you get driving along Queens’ 2,443 miles of streets may not always be caused by potholes, but by the new traffic safety speed bumps installed by the City’s Dept. of Transportation (DOT).
Queens has more than 105 of these units — over one-third of the City’s installation, according to figures released by the DOT. Nine more units are scheduled to be installed in Queens.
Designed to reduce the speed of motorists on local streets with high pedestrian volumes, a speed bump is a raised pavement that stays at a height of three to five inches for ten feet and then slopes back to ground level . . . all within a 20-foot stretch. Warning markings on the ground, alert motorists that they are nearing or have driven onto the elevation.
Tests to determine visibility during inclement weather will be conducted after the next snow fall.
The DOT’s Office of Planning and Urban Mobility has already placed the raised units in the proximity of 57 Queens public, private and parochial schools in order to enhance the climate of safety for elementary school children. In addition, the speed bumps have also been installed on local streets near parks, playgrounds, and places of public assembly where speeding vehicles may create traffic hazards. The first unit was installed in front of P.S. 116, on Wren Pl., in 1996.
According to DOT engineers, on-site tests show that motorists driving across the elevation experience a gentle vehicular rocking that usually causes them to reduce their car speeds to about 15 mph . . . a safe speed near schools, parks and playgrounds. DOT specifications do not permit installation of the special ramps on bus or truck routes or on snow emergency streets.
City engineers avoided using standard three-foot-long speed bumps, used in parking lot driveways or in toll plazas, because the shortened rise is absorbed by the vehicle’s suspension system and ice build-up during snow storms.
Critics of the plan say that inclement weather — heavy rains or a snowstorm — could trigger an accident involving vehicles responding to an emergency. Since there has been little or no snow fall during the past two years, DOT engineers have scheduled tests for this winter.