By Bill Parry
A boisterous crowd of nearly 250 Long Island City residents, many of them schoolchildren, gathered at the corner of Center Boulevard and 48th Avenue to demand traffic calming measures from the city Department of Transportation last Friday.
For two years, the agency has denied repeated requests for stop signs, crosswalks or speed bumps on a dangerous stretch of road that runs beside the luxury high-rise apartment buildings and the waterfront parks along the East River.
“Too often drivers treat Center Boulevard as a speedway,” City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside) said. “For years the DOT has denied the community’s requests to have pedestrian safety measures installed along this growing residential street. Our concerns cannot continue to be ignored. Now is the time to act. We cannot wait until someone is killed or seriously injured.”
According to recent NYPD Motor Vehicle Collision Reports, Center Boulevard experienced five serious vehicular collisions during the first four months of the year.
“The DOT needs to get their heads our of their manholes,” state Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Astoria) said. “One look around this neighborhood and anyone can see the growth reflected by the many people moving here to raise their families. Nothing is more important than protecting our kids, and that job is not done until they can get to and from school safely.”
Center Boulevard fronts an elementary school, a high school and two athletic fields and is the access to Gantry Plaza State Park and the new Hunters Point South Park.
“People like to compare us to Battery Park City, but you can’t go one block down there without hitting a stop sign,” Parent-Teacher Association Co-Vice president Cara Lamberg said. “For more than 10 years PS/IS 78 has been positioned on a road that has no visible markings that indicate to traffic that a school actually exists here. We need action from the DOT now before a child or a pedestrian gets killed.”
In a symbol of resolve by the crowd, they hoisted a homemade stop sign while dozens of the schoolchildren used colored chalk to draw their own crosswalk on Center Boulevard.
Van Bramer hopes the rally will influence the DOT when it conducts another study later this summer.
“I am not surprised by the large turnout. There is a baby boom and a building boom in this neighborhood and the area has needed traffic calming for years and we’re fed up,” he said.
A DOT spokesman said the intersections at 48th and 49th avenues are being re-evaluated for stop signs or other traffic control devices with studies to be completed next month.
“Additionally, DOT and its partners are working on a capital project to reconstruct Hunters Point streets and other infrastructure to address the recent growth in the area,” spokesman Nicholas Mosquera said. “Traffic calming to make streets safer and work better for all users, especially pedestrians, is a key part of the project.
Van Bramer hopes it is not a case of too little too late.
“If we get a stop sign or a speed bump or crosswalk after a child is hurt, it is a failure. The point of good government is to avoid tragedies before they take place,” he said.
Reach reporter Bill Parry by e-mail at bparry@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4538.
