After an 18-month, $1.4 million community-driven study to address traffic congestion, the Department of Transportation (DOT) has recognized the transportation and pedestrian needs of Jackson Heights.
In a community open house on Saturday, April 17, DOT presented the research and data collected that highlighted the area’s most pressing issues and they will present their solutions at two public community workshops on Tuesday, April 27 and Thursday, April 29 at 6:30 p.m. at Public School 60 at 77-02 37th Avenue. The DOT hopes to share a vision of how the streets would look and function, and to create the framework for future transportation improvements.
“The goal is to come up with short-term solutions in a collaborative fashion. We will propose temporary fixes to these problems and monitor how well they work,” said DOT Project Manager Willa Ng. “We can expand sidewalks and close down streets with paint.”
About 120 attendees viewed maps and information collected from surveys, learned counts of vehicles and pedestrians that frequented the neighborhood, and examined hard technological data and questions asked at past community workshops.
The first phase of the study, which began in May 2009, had community members take DOT representatives on walks and point out problems within the area of 35th Avenue to the north, 82nd Street to the east, the intersection of Baxter Avenue and Broadway to the south, 41st Avenue to the southwest and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to the west. Data was collected in surveys from those who live, work or drive there.
Double parking, traffic and pedestrian congestion, noise and air pollution were among the major issues sited. Also noted was how vendors followed pedestrians and so key streets continued to be overcrowded. In some areas, traffic moved under five miles per hour.
“The number one problem is that the same streets serve too many functions – parking, buses, deliveries, walk-through, window shopping – and there’s not enough space to handle it,” Ng said.
In phase two, “Street Classification,” residents will assign specific roles to specific streets. The community will decide which streets will be general, slow transit or pedestrian-only, and the DOT will make improvements. Ng said nothing would be ruled out until the community approves it.
Assemblymember Michael DenDekker was pleased so many people in the area came out to solve transportation and pedestrian problems.
“This is a good study. It allows residents, businesses and the DOT to work together,” he said. “I agree with everything, but we already knew we had these problems. I look forward to coming back in two weeks to see what the solutions are.”
