By Joe Anuta
The city was scheduled to meet with Community Board 6 Thursday about revamping Woodhaven Boulevard, but board members were wary of the city’s tactics.
The city Department of Transportation has a proposal to mitigate traffic congestion on the boulevard, which passes through Community Boards 5, 6 and 9 and the neighborhoods of Rego Park, Forest Hills, Middle Village, Glendale, Woodhaven and Ozone Park.
During past projects, the DOT has met with all the community boards collectively, but this time the agency is having planning sessions with each individually, which is what worries CB 6.
“Divide and conquer. That’s not going to happen,” said Chairman Joseph Hennessy at a meeting last Thursday. “We’ve been crying for a study on Metropolitan [Avenue] and Woodhaven for the past 15 years.”
Board members feared it might be easier for the DOT to get individual community boards to sign off on controversial aspects of the plan that occur outside their boundaries, rather than have a meeting with all three.
“It really affects us and our economies,” said CB 6 District Manager Frank Gulluscio. “We are totally upset about this.”
But a spokesman for the department said DOT has done community outreach, including three meetings open to the public, a community walk-through and three meetings of the Project Advisory Committee, which includes chairs and district managers of affected community boards and will have another meeting of the committee this summer. The department said the individual meetings are simply to inform the different boards about short-term changes that will happen later this year.
One controversial aspect of the plan involves the intersection between Woodhaven Boulevard and Union Turnpike. Southbound traffic on the boulevard currently is allowed to make a left on Union Turnpike.
But one aspect of the plan would instead divert traffic to Metropolitan Avenue, which did not sit well with John Dereszewski, a CB 6 member and chairman of the Transportation Committee.
“My position is that this is not a good idea,” he said. “Union Turnpike is far better suited to take higher volumes of traffic.”
The extra traffic from Woodhaven Boulevard would further burden Metropolitan Avenue, which is already congested with traffic, Dereszewski said.
Hennessy said the issue would be a key portion of the meeting.
“We’re not going to put more traffic on Metropolitan Avenue, period,” he said, citing the fact that many schools and shops lie along the busy street.
But DOT said the turn is one of the leading contributors to congestion along the corridor and is highly unsafe. The change is part of the long-term plan, according to DOT, but will not be implemented in the short term.
Reach reporter Joe Anuta by e-mail at januta@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4566.
