Countdown Lights Needed

Queens Boulevard, known the world over as the &#8220Boulevard of Death,” was the scene of another fatal traffic accident last week on Yom Kippur. Another innocent pedestrian, 59-year-old Yakub Aminoz who was coming home from High Holy services at his temple, was struck by a hit-and-run driver. He died of his injuries at Jamaica Hospital the next day, Tuesday October 3.
The Department of Transportation (DOT) spokesperson was quick to point out that deaths on the thoroughfare have dropped precipitously since the DOT and the city enacted several safety measures designed to protect pedestrians. The spokesperson pointed to the installation of fencing along the median strips to prevent jaywalking and the lengthening of the time to cross the expansive roadway from 30 seconds to 60 seconds.
The intersection, 67th Avenue and Queens Boulevard, was the scene of another fatal accident in November 2000. A 14-year-old Bukharan immigrant, Sofia Leviyev, was run down by a speeding minivan and killed at the same intersection. She was allegedly crossing as the light turned red.
While it is true that the number of fatal accidents has dropped since the implementation of the safety measures, perhaps it is time for the DOT, the City Council and the mayor to look seriously at the crosswalk signs that have countdown timers too.
Countdown signals are in use all over the globe from Japan to Germany to England and in dozens of cities in the United States too. The city of Peekskill, NY, has installed over 600 such traffic signals. They only cost about $130 extra over the cost of the white walking figure and orange stop hand signals.
City Councilmember John Liu, chair of the Council's Transportation Committee, is an advocate for the installation of the devices. We hope that he pushes harder for them all along Queens Boulevard and other busy roadways like Main Street Flushing and Northern Boulevard too.
Additionally, the powers that be might want to consider the ideas put forth by the gothamist, a daily blog that covers New York City. They have suggested providing pedestrians with exclusive crossing time by banning cars from turning corners while people are in the crosswalks.
Other good ideas put forth by the gothamist blog include delayed traffic signals for cars so that pedestrians get a head start in the crosswalks, making them more visible to turning vehicles; raising crosswalks as many as four inches higher than the roadbed and sidewalk extensions at the corners would make automobiles and trucks have to slow down when navigating the intersections.
The DOT reported 152 fatalities of pedestrians in 2005.
We must make all improvements to our crowded, busy intersections to render them safer for people and reduce the number of people killed or injured on our streets to as close to zero as possible.