Hope To Reduce Reckless Driving
After a long fight for traffic safety at P.S. 232 Walter Ward School, the Department of Transportation (DOT), students, the school’s administration and State Sen. Joseph Addabbo, welcomed two new street signs to combat reckless driving.
“It’s a great day for 232 and for the surrounding area of Lindenwood,” Addabbo said. “Of all the schools in my district, I felt this school had a message to give, it had to make a statement. We demand safe streets, and what we’re doing today is a positive step forward.”
“We need further action–a speed bump, or a stop sign- –before someone gets hurt. We want to prevent an accident, we don’t want to react to one,” he added.
P.S. 232 has long suffered from hazardous traffic conditions on the corner of 83rd Street and 153rd Avenue. The Lindenwood Shopping Center just across from the school invites in a significant amount of cars, plus school carpoolers parking in the lot and crossing the street where there is no crosswalk or crossing guard.
Addabbo approached Queens Borough DOT Commission Dalila Hall about a potential solution, and Hall mentioned a program in which students draw a safety sign and the DOT prints it onto metal to be hung in the school’s surrounding area. After the Senator spoke to Hall and P.S. 232 Principal Lisa Josephson, the school was selected to become a program participant.
“We have been waiting for this day now for a very long time,” Josephson said at the unveiling. “We started talking about this at the beginning of the school year.”
Class 702 designed the street sign, collaborated with teaching artists and visited the DOT’s sign shop to see how their creation would be made. PS 232 was one of only eight schools across New York City who were selected to participate in the DOT program.
“That sign out there is going to be a reminder we need to keep fighting,” Addabbo said. “Thank you very much for saving a life today.”
