DOE Invited To Tour Area By P.S. 229 In Woodside
After being urged to review their decision to remove a hazard variance letting P.S. 229 students use school buses to get to class, representatives from the Department of Education (DOE) joined members of the District 24 Community Education Council (CEC 24) in Woodside on a Thursday, Mar. 15 walking tour of the surrounding area.
CEC 24 President Nick Comaianni joined fellow members Bill Kregler and Connie Partinico, local residents and CEO Eric Goldstein and Executive Director Alexandra Robinson of the DOE’s Office of Pupil Transportation at 61st Street and Laurel Hill Boulevard, where the variance was removed.
The variance originally allowed those in the third to sixth grades to take a bus to the school, located at 67-25 51st Rd., but it was removed in 2010. Students in those grades are expected to walk to school or use a halfprice MetroCard.
The complicated intersection- which sits below the Brooklyn- Queens Expressway, and is located next to a westbound off-ramp and an on-ramp-took several minutes to cross.
“This is light. This is 1 p.m., no traffic, no problem,” Comaianni claimed; Partinico added that the traffic increases during the morning and evening rush hours.
Kregler added that the area is a major truck corridor, and that truck traffic has increased since the Maspeth Bypass truck route was enacted last year. He also pointed out that many of the turns are at odd angles, decreasing visibility for drivers and pedestrians alike
Local parent Michelle Kates echoed Partinico’s sentiments, noting that in the morning rush hour, “people seem to be in more of a rush.”
“I think the time they picked to do the walk is irrelevant,” she added.
From that intersection, the group walked to 63rd Street and Laurel Hill Boulevard, which Comaianni called “just as bad,” pointing out that many drivers use the southbound route to get to the Long Island Expressway.
Comaianni told the Times Newsweekly that CEC 24 had asked the city Department of Transportation to make improvements along city streets to make them safer for children walking to P.S. 229, but “how much can you improve that area? The trucks have to take a route.”
Kregler would also state that due to parents now driving their children to school instead of having them take the bus, vehicles are double- and triple-parked at P.S. 229’s Maurice Avenue entrance, causing another safety issue.
Kates currently takes her daughter to the school: “I would never walk that way.”
“We have a bus that comes,” she noted, referring to the school bus that picks up younger students. P.S. 229 parents have pushed for the bus to be used for older students as well. “We’re not asking for something we don’t have.
Goldstein and Robinson did not comment on whether they would remove the variance. Comaianni stated that there is no timetable for the variance’s removal but parents expressed hope that it would be removed in time for the fall semester.
