By Jeremy Walsh
Changes have at least begun on the Sunnyside Gardens community’s big plans for Barnett Avenue. Community Board 2 voted unanimously to approve a plan to make the narrow street run one-way westbound from 48th to 50th streets.
It was unclear Tuesday when the city Department of Transportation would make the change, but Sunnyside Gardens resident Ciaran Staunton, who has championed the revitalization of the corner of Barnett and 48th Street, said the agency was ready to move pending the board’s decision.
A city DOT spokesman was unable to provide further information by press time Tuesday.
“We went to every home in the last couple of weeks,” Staunton said of his efforts to reach a consensus on the previously controversial plan. “Twenty-six of 30 residents signed the petition.”
Making the road one-way would increase the amount of shoulder free for pedestrian use, proponents of the plan have said. Previous iterations called for making Barnett one-way for several blocks, but this raised the ire of Phipps Garden Co-op tenants, whose driveways open up onto the street.
“This is about the safety of people,” said Steve Martin, who lives in the Phipps Gardens building, noting the pedestrians walking along the unprotected road shoulder range from Bryant High School students to senior citizens on their way to the Stop & Shop on Northern Boulevard. “There’s more pedestrian traffic now than I’ve ever seen before.”
Barnett, which runs east to west between the Long Island Rail Road tracks and Sunnyside Garden Park, is heavily used by pedestrians walking between their apartments and the Sunnyside Mall on Northern Boulevard. It has no sidewalks and until recently brush overhung the road shoulders. People have long used it as a dumping ground.
Staunton and his neighbors have been working with the city to establish boundaries between city-owned land and the privately owned park in order to hasten the planning process for sidewalks.
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) visited the area a year ago along with city DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and said the city would fund the construction of sidewalks in 2012, but it was unclear how budgeting issues would affect that schedule.
Reach reporter Jeremy Walsh by e-mail at jewalsh@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 154.
