DOT Spends Year Fixing Traffic Hazards

The City Department of Transportation (DOT) spent the past year removing vehicular and pedestrian hazards from Queens streets and sidewalks, according to work reports released to The Queens Courier.
Highlighting the citys increasing emphasis on pedestrian safety, DOT crews constructed more than half a million square feet of new sidewalks around Queens schools and playgrounds in time for the beginning of the fall school term more than half of city-wide programs.
"Our paramount goal at the Department of Transportation is to ensure safety particularly for our children," declared DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall.
The DOT also took measures to promote child safety in the vicinity of 15 Queens pedestrian bridges. New slalom fencing, safety zones and signal timing were installed to prevent young cyclists from riding across the bridges directly into moving traffic. New pedestrian-activated signals were also installed.
DOT engineers have completed studies calling for the installation of computerized signals along Kissena, Bell, College Point and Willets Point Boulevards, as well as 14th Avenue during the coming year.
The computerized signals provide added pedestrian safety. In residential areas, parents and school officials know that computerized lights near schools are automatically timed to give extra time for youngsters to cross signalized corners during morning drop-offs and afternoon dismissals on weekdays.
When this latest project is completed, 101 key Queens roadways, from the Rockaways in the south, to Bell Boulevard in northeast Queens, will be linked by a central radio system as part of Queens 2,443-mile street traffic control system. An additional 843 local traffic signalized corners will also be linked to a central command via radio signals.
The crowded streets of Astoria, in the vicinity of the Triboro Bridge, were suddenly quieter, and pedestrians were able to cross the streets in safety with the help of the DOT. New rules and signs now allow thousands of trucks per day to use a short stretch of the Grand Central Parkway to drive to and from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway instead of trundling along on the local crowded streets.
The DOTs Queens work crews resurfaced 195 lane miles of streets during the past year. The busy crews still had time to post more than 31,300 signs along the boroughs 2,443 miles of streets.