Improvements At R’wood Corner
The busy Ridgewood intersection of Myrtle Avenue, Wyckoff Avenue and Palmetto Street will soon get a make over after the Community Board 5 Transportation and Public Transit Committees unanimously recommended a city Transportation Department (DOT) proposal during its meeting last Tuesday, May 20, at the board’s Glendale office.
The deadly intersection is complicated by three major roadways meeting under train tracks and houses a major subway stop for the L and M trains, four Brooklyn bus routes (B13, B26, B52, B54,) and two Queens routes (Q55, Q58), with a layover on Wyckoff Avenue.
Local Brooklyn and through Queens truck routes use Myrtle Avenue, resulting in heavy truck traffic coexisting with heavy pedestrian traffic, according to the presentation given to the board by the DOT Queens Borough Commissioner’s office on May 14.
The committees have advocated for more safety at this intersection for nearly five years, explained Board 5 Chairperson Vincent Arcuri, who cochairs its Transportation Committee.
Some changes have already been made, including retiming the lights and increasing visibility under the tracks, according to DOT Queens Borough Commissioner Dalila Hall.
Despite the changes, many dangers still loom. The three roadways form skewed intersections, making crosswalk distances very lengthy and some low volume, hard angled turns are extremely hazardous, especially for large trucks, it was explained.
According to a DOT report, between 2008 and 2012, the intersection has seen 29 total injuries, two fatalities, and 15 pedestrian injuries.
Current proposed changes would include installing five extended painted curbs, a new crosswalk acrossMyrtleAvenue on the east side of Wyckoff Avenue and highly visible crosswalks.
Also, the low volume turns would be banned minimizing conflicts between vehicles, trucks and pedestrians.
Arcuri sought another meeting with DOT engineers in an effort to review the plan for a third time and impose any additional changes necessary.
However, Hall, who needed a recommendation from the committees, was ready to move on with the process to keep up with the mayor’s Vision Zero program.
“I think we’ve reviewed in good faith genuine plans that our engineers feel confident that help resolve some of the situations we’ve seen out there,” said Hall. “We’d like to move on this.”
During the committees’ deliberation, Board 5 District Manager Gary Giordano called out to one attendee, Ken Bandes, for an opinion; Bandes’ daughter was struck and killed in the intersection in 2013.
Bandes expressed some frustration that improvements had been suggested and never implemented and then someone was killed in 2009 and then later his daughter. He is eager to see action.
“From my point of view, I would just like to see something done,” said Bandes. “I just count every day as another day somebody could be killed.”
Bandes stated he was recently at the intersection for an interview with a local news station. As they watched Myrtle and Wyckoff avenues, Bandes said people were “literally fleeing cars and buses.”
“There’s another one waiting to happen,” he said.
Arcuri expressed concern that this was the end of the project, adding that no matter the night’s vote, more needed to be done in the future. He wanted to make sure this was not the end of the process.
One of Hall’s planners reminded the meeting that the changes would all be done with temporary materials so the intersection could be monitored and then altered again with capital improvements, if necessary, at a later date.
Hall reassured, “You know where to find me, we’ll continue talking to you. We’re not going to close shop and walk away and you’ll never find the DOT again.”
On the MoveNY plan
Jonathan Matts with MoveNY, a non-profit transportation group aimed at ending gridlock in New York, spoke to committee members about the organization’s efforts.
The group wants to make city streets faster, safer, and fairer as noted on the website. He stated MoveNY is currently undergoing a citywide grassroots campaign to meet with, inform and solicit suggestions from local communities and their leaders about MoveNY’s proposal for reducing city traffic.
MoveNY proposes to discourage vehicles from driving through Manhattan by imposing tolls of around $5 both ways on free bridges such as Williamsburg, Manhattan, Brooklyn and Ed Koch-Queensboro bridges, while significantly decreasing tolls on the outer edge of the city to little more than $1 to $2.
The plan would end the parking tax rebate for Manhattanites and impose a 14 percent surcharge on taxi rides so those living in the city but do not drive would contribute to the system.
For more information visit www.move-ny.org.
The next meeting of Community Board 5’s Transportation and Public Transit committees is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, June 24, at 7:30 p.m. at the Board 5 office, located at 61-23 Myrtle Ave. in Glendale. For more information, call 1-718-366-1834.
