By Ayala Ben-Yehuda
Bay Terrace residents and northeast Queens politicians picketed in front of doctors’ offices on Bell Boulevard Friday to protest the installation of parking meters in the area, which they said doctors had arranged without residents’ support.
But a doctor whose office was picketed said thousands of people had signed petitions supporting the meters and that he had met with elected officials and civic leaders to discuss the idea.
“Hey hey, ho ho, they want meters, we say no,” said the group of about two dozen people on the icy pavement at Bell and 24th Avenue carrying signs that read “No meters in Bay Terrace.”
Last month the city Department of Transportation installed poles for what it said would be 20 two-hour meters in front of doctors’ offices across from the Bay Terrace Shopping Center.
But after an outcry from residents, the DOT said last week it was pulling out the poles and taking down the signs pending the completion of a Department of City Planning traffic study of the area.
“Meters are totally inappropriate in this community,” said Councilman Tony Avella (D-Bayside), flanked at Friday’s protest by state Sen. Toby Stavisky (D-Whitestone) and Assemblywoman Ann-Margaret Carrozza (D-Bayside).
The Bay Terrace doctors “chose to take an independent path to try to rush this through the DOT” instead of waiting for the Department of City Planning to finish its traffic study of the area and make recommendations, said the councilman.
Stavisky said that “when the doctors moved in here, they knew there was a parking problem.”
The protesters walked up the block to picket the office of Dr. Jordan Zuckerman at 23-91 Bell Blvd.
“We’re so much against these meters,” said Phil Konigsberg of the Bay Terrace Community Alliance.
Reached by phone, Zuckerman, who has met with Avella, the Department of City Planning and the Bay Terrace civic leaders to discuss parking issues, said “we’re not asking for meters in front of residences. All we’re asking for is muni-meters in front of doctors’ offices where nobody lives.”
The dermatologist said between 30 and 40 doctors in the area had gathered more than 2,300 signatures between them “from everyone in the community” last spring and sent them to DOT.
“Everything was done legally and above board,” said Zuckerman.
Avella had questioned the doctors’ petition, saying it was too generic in what it asked for.
“I think they misrepresented the people in this community,” he said.
But Zuckerman, who has become a spokesman for his colleagues in Bay Terrace, said the petition specified support for either muni-meters or parking meters.
“They are our patients, our neighbors and our friends,” he said of the residents.
The Bay Terrace Community Alliance supports alternatives to meters such as shortening the sidewalk on 24th Avenue to create angled parking, using a parking lot at a nearby pool club and spaces at the Bay Terrace Shopping Center.
Zuckerman said angled parking on 24th Avenue would not provide enough additional spaces to solve the parking crunch and that the pool club’s president was worried about liability issues.
“It’s a little too far for pregnant women and elderly patients to walk from that area,” he added, although the pool club lot might work for doctors and their staff, he said.
As for the shopping center’s offer to let doctors pay a valet service to shuttle patients’ cars to and from the mall parking structure, Zuckerman said valets on Bell Boulevard would cause “a logistical nightmare.”
Reach reporter Ayala Ben-Yehuda by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 146.
