By Tommy Hallissey
Queens Boulevard, a 7.1-mile stretch of road, has been the site of 84 pedestrian deaths and 2,300 injuries since 1993. city The Department of Transportation has responded by increasing pedestrian crossing times, installing fencing and reducing the speed limit to 30 miles per hour. But two community leaders contend the DOT has not done enough.
Since January, Estelle and Norbert Chwat, co-presidents of the Forest Hills Action League, have been collecting signatures on a petition that demands “permanent traffic and police presence be maintained on this killer highway in the midst of a residential area to prevent continuous deaths and injuries.”
Deeply moved by two separate deaths, the Chwats decided they could not endure the neglect of Queens Boulevard sitting down. They had collected more than 2,000 signatures for increased safety features and greater police presence on the Boulevard to be given to U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Kew Gardens) in hopes of influencing the House transportation appropriations bill.
“We've got to do something,” Norbert Chwat said. “The neglect of this road has to stop.”
But after the federal highway appropriations that passed the House April 2 were made public, the couple decided to close their campaign. The Chwats said they were upset that in the House version Queens Boulevard only got only $1.6 million when $10 million was earmarked to build a greenway, bicycle path, esplanade and ferry landing in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.
Then they got a phone call from a student at Baruch College that changed everything for the Chwats, both 79 years old. Cindy Haripersad of South Ozone Park had an assignment for her speech class. Her professor assigned each of the students to find one bill they supported, then get a petition together to get that law passed.
Since she is always around Queens Boulevard, Haripersad chose a traffic bill from the state Assembly that deals with the boulevard. Haripersad chose A00768, which “prohibits the establishment of a green-light speed progression sequence or timing rates for the changing of traffic signals by the local authority … further provides that all such sequences and rates shall be consistent with the posted speed limit on Queens Boulevard.” Green light speed progression is the pacing of red and green lights on a street. The faster the progression the slower traffic speed.
The aim of the bill is to reduce traffic speed on Queens Boulevard by increasing the frequency of red lights, said state Assemblyman Michael Cohen (D-Forest Hills), the bill's author.
Haripersad then called Estelle and Norbert Chwat to see if she could use their petition. The call from the college student invigorated the couple.
“You reach a point in doing something like this where you wonder who's listening and if anybody cares,” Estelle Chwat said. “Here she comes in like a breath of sunshine.”
Estelle and Norbert Chwat decided to reopen their signature drive. Haripersad plans to have her whole class sign the petition as well as her friends and family. “The safety of people is not one person's concern,” said Haripersad, “it's everybody's concern.”
Reach reporter Tommy Hallissey by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229–0300 Ext. 155
