By Philip Newman
Queens motorists have the smoothest ride in New York City because the borough has more level roadways and fewer jolts than anywhere in the city, a new survey found.
The Fund for the City of New York said 64 percent of Queens streets are what were called acceptably smooth with drivers encountering 6.7 jolts per mile.
For New York City as a whole, 58 percent of streets are acceptably smooth and a driver can expect to hit 8.7 jolts per mile, the survey said.
The worst place to drive is Manhattan, with only 45 percent of streets reported as acceptably smooth and motorists encountering 14.4 severe jolts per mile.
Both Queens and Staten Island showed significant improvement in street conditions since the last such survey in 1997. While Brooklyn streets declined, Manhattan and Bronx streets remained about the same as four years ago.
Bayside streets showed tremendous improvement with six jolts per mile compared with 17 per mile in the 1997 survey.
Starting in late 1999, the Fund for the City of New York Center on Municipal Performance sent a test car over 670 miles of randomly selected routes covering 59 community districts. The car was equipped with a laser technology device known as a profilometer that produces “objective reliable and accurate measurements about variations in the surface of streets, recording every dip and rise along the path.”
The resulting data filled more than 5,000 pages and was analyzed using a computer to produce a standard roughness index.
Barbara Cohn, president of the non-profit Fund for the City of New York, said she was encouraged by the incidence of fewer jolts than in the previous survey and acknowledged that the city had carried out its annual pothole repair blitz.
The survey found that Queens had the highest percentage of smooth streets at 65 percent — vs. 64 percent in 1997 — with the fewest number of jolts per mile at 6.7 compared with 9.3 in 1997.
The greatest improvements were seen in Community Board 11 (Bayside, Douglaston, Little Neck and Oakland Gardens) with 6.02 jolts per mile compared with 17.59 in the 1997 survey; Community Board 7 (Whitestone, Flushing, College Point and Auburndale) 4.44 jolts per mile compared with 14.60 in 1997; Community Board 10 (Ozone Park, Howard Beach, South Ozone Park) 4.21 jolts per mile compared with 11.15 in 1997; Community Board 8 (Fresh Meadows, Briarwood, Jamaica Estates and Utopia) 6.83 jolts per mile as compared with 13.02 in 1997.
Then there were negative reports:
Community Board 1 (Astoria, Steinway, Long Island City and Queensbridge showed an increase in jolts with 9.91 per mile, compared with 6.51 in 1997.
Community Board 12 (Jamaica, St. Albans, Hollis and Springfield Gardens) also declined in road smoothness, falling from 63.29 percent to 47.81 percent.
As to smoothness of roadways, Community Board 13 (Laurelton, Queens Village and Cambria Heights) had 75.70 percent of its streets rated as acceptably smooth, improving from 60.44 percent in 1997.
The survey reported that the area including the Financial District, Tribeca, Battery Park and South Street Seaport in Manhattan had the roughest streets in the city: Only 21 percent of blocks were smooth and motorists hit 31 jolts per mile.
The best area to drive was Brooklyn’s Canarsie, Mill Basin, Marine Park and Flatlands areas, where 87 percent of blocks were smooth and drivers encountered only 2.9 jolts per mile.
Reach contributing writer by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 136.
