By Alex Davidson
A traffic study in South Ozone Park initiated after a request by Community Board 10 will be completed in a few months and will serve as a reference for future changes in street directions and traffic patterns, a city spokeswoman said.
Lisi de Bourbon, spokeswoman for the city Department of Transportation, said her agency responded to the board's request following its regular meeting several months ago. She said the study is examining traffic volume, flow and circulation.
“The study should be completed by the end of the summer or early September,” she said. “It takes a total of three months to gather data.”
De Bourbon said the study is looking at an area that is bordered by North Conduit Avenue to the south, Centerville Street to the east, Rockaway Boulevard to the north, and Crossbay Boulevard to the west. A large portion of the area borders Aqueduct Race Track.
Workers and engineers performing the study have installed traffic counters on the included streets and measured street widths, de Bourbon said. She said the city DOT is also recording how land surrounding the area streets is used, whether for residential, commercial or industrial purposes, and factoring that into its final report on traffic in the area.
De Bourbon said once the study is done, it will be presented to Community Board 10 for review. She said the board will then work with the DOT on any additional revisions to the report that will finally be presented several months later.
She said the whole process, including data collection, could take as long as a year.
“We have to be really careful with a neighborhood and be sure everything really works,” de Bourbon said.
Community Board 10 tabled decisions on the redirection of street traffic several months ago pending a study that would serve to give members a bigger picture of car and truck paths in their immediate area. Several members said they wanted one study that they could then base future decisions on rather than having one separate study for proposed changes in street directions that ignored South Ozone Park's traffic patterns as a whole.
This study is not the first of its kind in Queens, de Bourbon said. She said two other similar studies were done to accommodate local residents and allay their concerns about city traffic.
Local agencies and departments within the city DOT will enact any changes resulting from the study's recommendations, de Bourbon said.
Community board members said at the time of the meeting that results of the study would determine whether they must recommend that certain streets be changed from northbound to southbound streets and find it necessary to eliminate two-way traffic in some areas.
Reach reporter Alex Davidson by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 156
