DOT Safety Zones Coming For Metro & Roosevelt
The Department of Transportation (DOT) will effect the next round of arterial slow zones, with two in Queens, and lower speed limits on the selected roads by five mph, it was announced Friday, Aug. 1.
The entire length of Roosevelt Avenue from the Sunnyside/Woodside border at Queens Boulevard to 154th Street in Murray Hill, and Metropolitan Avenue from Onderdonk Avenue in Ridgewood to 132nd Street in Kew Gardens will receive the designation in Queens. Part of implementing Vision Zero, an effort led by Mayor Bill de Blasio to eliminate trafficrelated injuries and deaths, the first slow zones in the borough were installed earlier this year along Northern Boulevard in Long Island City, 114th Street in Elmhurst and Queens Boulevard from Long Island City to Jamaica.
Roosevelt Avenue, a 5.8-mile long road, had five fatalities from 2008 to 2012, while the 5.6-mile stretch of Metropolitan Avenue had six in the same period, according to the DOT.
“Slow Zones are a critical and widely endorsed element of Vision Zero,” DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg said.
Queens’ City Council members with an affected street in their district applauded the second round of slow zones.
“Roosevelt Avenue is an incredibly busy roadway with many thousands of pedestrians walking along it and crossing at many different intersections every day,” City Council Member Daniel Dromm said. “Lowering the speed limit and implementing the Arterial Slow Zone will help make this neighborhood safer.”
The DOT project to alter the roads was set to begin this Monday, Aug. 4 on Jerome Avenue in the Bronx. Work on Roosevelt Avenue is scheduled to start in September, and on Metropolitan Avenue in December.
“Tackling the epidemic of speeding along our city’s heavily trafficked commercial corridors will have a dramatic impact on the amount of traffic fatalities and serious injuries our city experiences every year,” City Council Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer said. “By reducing the speed limit and increasing traffic enforcement along Roosevelt Avenue we can, and will prevent tragedy from occurring.”
New, distinctive signage along the streets will alert drivers to the change, and the NYPD will increase enforcement efforts as well, according to the DOT.
“Together we will make Vision Zero a reality by doing all in our power to prevent tragedies from occurring in western Queens,” Van Bramer added.
