Queens Community Board 5 (CB 5) is advocating that three streets in Glendale be converted to one-way roads after residents submitted multiple petitions alerting the board to incidents of side-swipes on narrow blocks.
Currently, 60th Lane, 64th Street, 64th Place and 75th Avenue are two-way residential streets with parking on both sides. Gary Giordano, district manager of CB 5, said this has became an issue for residents in the community.
“The streets are only 30 feet wide, from what the Department of Transportation (DOT) has told us,” Giordano said. “So, it’s difficult for vehicles to pass each other and there have been too many side-swipings and knocking of mirrors.”
After the board received multiple complaints and petitions late last year, they contacted the DOT to do an area-wide study to observe what changes would need to be made.
From January to June 2022, the DOT conducted field observations, collected traffic volumes and reviewed crash data.
The DOT found through their study that vehicles are forced to partially park on sidewalks to avoid being side-swiped. They also observed there are constrained intersection geometries, meaning drivers are forced to make a tight turn, which leads to blocked crosswalks.
The DOT subsequently proposed to convert 60th Lane to a one-way northbound from Cooper Avenue to 75th Avenue; 64th Street to one-way southbound from 75th Avenue to Cooper Avenue; 64th Place to a one-way northbound from Cooper Avenue to Cypress Hills Street; and 75th Avenue to a one-way eastbound from 60th Lane to 64th Street.
The Transportation and Public Transit Services Committee of CB 5 and the rest of the board were favorable to all of the changes; however, members were split on whether 75th Avenue should be converted from two-way to one-way eastbound between 60th Lane and 64th Street.
“They thought that more traffic would get pushed onto Cooper Avenue and Myrtle Avenue,” Giordano said.
The DOT also informed the board that at peak hours, 250 cars per hour go westbound down 75th Avenue.
“So, by making [75th Avenue] a one-way eastbound, 250 cars per hour would have to be rerouted,” said Eric Butkiewicz, chairman of CB 5’s Transportation Committee. “The DOT believes those would all be going to Cooper Avenue, which we all know is another source of major issues — it is a narrow street, has a bus route, has a bike route— and poses another plethora of problems.”
In a letter to the DOT, Giordano laid out the board’s final recommendations that 60th Lane, 64th Street and 64th Place be converted while the 75th Avenue conversion be put on hold until the committee could further monitor conditions along the street.
Butkiewicz said the DOT would take a full year to implement these conversions.
