DeBlasio, DOT blind to Maspeth street safety

"de Blasio has got to be kidding ?

His Vision Zero Action Plan to make streets safer must not include Queens, or at least the town of Maspeth. E-mails about a major on going safety problem, to his office, Queens DOT commissioner Dalila Hall's and NYC DOT commissioner Polly Trottenberg's offices go ignored and unanswered.

Almost 3 years ago, a group of residents along 70 St between 54 and 51 Aves asked the city to convert 70 St to a one way northbound. Our major concern after seeing parked vehicles being sideswiped and their mirrors torn off, as well as a number of fender benders, is for the safety of the children at IS 73. You see, many children, teachers and staff share the street with speeding school buses, racing TLC cars, parents dropping their kids off and the local citizens trying to get out and go to work. This is a narrow tertiary street. It runs from Queens B'lvd. to 54 Ave. where it ends at the entrance to IS 73. Someday, someone missing the stop sign, is going to drive through this "T" intersection and straight into the front entrance of this school !!! The city, in all its wisdom, moved the left turn lane on Queens B'lvd from 69 ST ( a secondary roadway ) to 70 St because of the volume of accidents. Drivers have discovered that they can avoid 6 or 7 traffic lights on 69 St by racing down our block.

On November 2, 2012, Community Board 5 received a letter from Maura McCarthy, former Queens DOT commissioner, responding to an October 18, 2011 request by the board for a one way conversion. Ms McCarthy responds by stating that traffic counts, street measurements, traffic circulation, area parking and the school congestion studies conducted by the DOT show that this area, and its pedestrians would be better served and safer as a one way street. The DOT recommends to the board that this conversion take place.

THREE YEARS LATER.......

We are still a two-way street. Someone was hit by a car on 70 St one block before the school. 5 students were hit by a car that jumped the curb at 71 St and Grand Ave. One child later died. 70 Street ends at 54 Ave and the traffic funnels down 71 St to Grand Avenue.

Our local council member Crowley - useless in getting the DOT to get moving.
DOT stated in the past it was a budgetary issue....we are talking 6 blocks here people !!! NOT all of Maspeth.
CB 5 notifies residents by mail that the conversion will take place week of 4/14/2014...DOT now denies this.

Where is the action, Mr. Mayor?

You know the area well having filled potholes a few blocks away.
You demonstrated that our local streets make great speedways.
Are you waiting to visit an injured or dead child and their parents before acting?
Has your "vision" gone blurry ? or don't you care about Queens?
You can take action here with much better results - in a much shorter time span.

The DOT states that it will not convert this street while school is in session. Makes NO sense. Spring the change on drivers all at once on a Monday morning after spring vacation, or on bus drivers, parents, and taxis who will NOT travel through here all summer!!! DOT workers can NOT work outside if the temperature is below 45....poor guys. Take a look at the faded, missing, and falling street signs in the area. Watch the next pothole patrol...how hard they work....and my point will be well made." - SKI

More restrictions on Maspeth Bypass route

From the Times Newsweekly:

With the Maspeth truck bypass helping to reduce through truck traffic on local shopping strips, the city Department of Transportation (DOT) is gearing up to move even further by changing truck routes through the neighborhood a second time, representatives of the agency told members of Community Board 5’s Transportation and Public Transit committees last Tuesday night, Nov. 27.

Maura McCarthy, the DOT’s Queens borough commissioner, told the panels at the board’s Glendale office that, while implementing the truck bypass route through industrial portions of Maspeth was “a little painful at the beginning,” she believes the plan is “an improvement” for the entire neighborhood.

Enacted last year, the Maspeth truck bypass route—long campaigned for by civic leaders—diverts trucks traveling through Maspeth between Brooklyn and Long Island into industrial areas of the community via Page Place, Maspeth and Maurice avenues and 58th Street. This route was designed so trucks would avoid using Grand and Flushing avenues, which run through residential and retail areas, in order to travel to and from the Long Island Expressway.

With the plan in place and working, the DOT’s Stacey Hodge noted that the agency is moving forward with plans to take Grand and Flushing avenues between the Brooklyn/ Queens border and the Long Island Expressway completely off the city truck route network. Next year, the agency will hold public hearings about the idea to designate the Maspeth bypass route as the only truck route through the community.

Grand and Flushing avenues are currently listed as local truck routes, meaning that only trucks making deliveries in Queens can travel on each segment. If both segments of Grand and Flushing avenues are off the truck route network, only rigs making deliveries in the immediate area would be permitted to travel both roadways.

Additionally, Fresh Pond Road between Flushing and Metropolitan avenues would also need to be taken off the truck route network since Fresh Pond Road does not connect to the bypass route, Hodge added.

A flooding fix for Broad Channel?

From the Daily News:

Broad Channel residents, facing the annual barrage of autumn storms and floods, say the city is dragging its feet on a plan to repair vulnerable streets.

Residents of W. 12th Rd., where floodwaters have totaled cars and turned streets into canals, said they are still waiting the start of a $24 million project to elevate the roadway.

... it’s been two years since Queens Borough President Helen Marshall and others pledged funds to pay for the project, which will elevate the level of W. 11th, 12th and 13th roads by several inches.

Queens Transportation Commissioner Maura McCarthy is scheduled to attend a Broad Channel Civic Association meeting on Sept. 27 and unveil finalized plans for the project.

Under the so-called shared-streets concept, sidewalks and roads will be level. But homeowners will have to allow construction on their property.

Broad Channel is surrounded by Jamaica Bay, giving many residents breathtaking waterfront views. But the water has also proven a formidable enemy for property owners, who have seen streets sink several inches over the years. The end of W. 12th Rd. has essentially collapsed into the bay.

Cemetery and DOT in war over cleaning

From The Forum:

According to [Pat] Noonan and another resident in that area who did not want to give his name, they have asked Dan Austin, president of All Faith’s Cemetery, to clean up the weeds and trees that sit on the edge of the property.

Noonan and the other resident have also complained to local and city officials about the area, including State Senator Joe Addabbo, Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley, Queens Borough President Helen Marshall and the Department of Transportation (DOT).

When asked by The Forum about the area, Austin said that the cemetery does not own that property and it is the city’s responsibility. He said that he has paperwork from DOT that says that the city is in charge of the maintenance.

He also said that the size and width of that side of the street isn’t big enough to make a sidewalk and they are waiting for the city to put a retaining wall in that area.

Austin said that they have been cleaning up that property despite it not being their responsibility.

But a letter from that Queens DOT Borough Commissioner Maura McCarthy to Borough President Marshall, says the cemetery is responsible for taking care of that area.

“The All Faith Cemetery is responsible for the maintenance of its property,” the letter read, which was obtained by The Forum and is dated January 20 of this year. “This includes vegetation along the side of the road on 73rd Place.”

A DOT spokesperson echoed McCarthy’s letter, saying that the cemetery is responsible for the road’s maintenance.

Noonan also said that Councilwoman Crowley’s office secured a money allocation to clean up the road almost two years ago, but the project never happened.

What a surprise!

Truck causes Haz Mat situation in Malba

All of the pictures I sent you were taken tonight March 6th, 8PM, as another Tractor Trailer attempted to turn onto our small residential street. This driver struck the hydrant, and ruptured his gas tank as his cab completely jumped the sidewalk spilling Diesel fuel all over the street. According to witnesses he then attempted to back out of the block. What if the hydrant was a person? or worse, a Child? HE ATTEMPTED TO BACK UP? IN ESSENCE RUNNING THE BODY OVER AGAIN?

Now tragedy was averted this time as it was only a hydrant. It did however become a HAZ MAT CONDITION which the Fire Department handled quickly (Albeit a Haz Mat condition of this magnitude should not be occurring on a 24 ft wide residential street, especially when we forewarned them over and over). Our organization has been trying to get our dangerous street converted into a one way westbound in order to avoid such happenings.

Today a Hydrant, tomorrow ? Yet if you ask Maura McCarthy of Queens DOT the traffic on 5 th avenue is not a safety issue, it is just a mere inconvenience. You look at these pictures and tell me, is it an inconvenience or a tragedy waiting to happen? Gene Kelty Community Board 7 chairman claims that his other group, Boosters Beach is against the change as it would be an inconvenience.

This is not the first time a Tractor Trailer has turned on our residential street, along with the scores of box trucks, on top of the 107 cars per hour all day every day (As per DOT traffic survey). For FIFTEEN YEARS the Malba Gardens Civic Association has been fighting to make this street safe for the residents, especially the 18 children under the age of 16 living on the first block of 5th avenue alone.

The Hydrant was destroyed today, LET US NOT ALLOW A FAMILY TO BE DESTROYED TOMORROW.

MAKE 5TH AVENUE A ONE WAY WESTBOUND TOWARD THE BRIDGE BEFORE ITS TOO LATE.


Some of our members, while reading the Whitestone Times, almost fell off their chairs.

The following is a direct quote in the paper about the one way story in the paper about 11th and 12th avenues.

“I don’t like one-way streets, but my feeling is if it provides safety for the people, makes plenty of room for the cars to travel and maximizes parking, then I am in support of it,” Kelty said.

I guess that goes for everyplace other than 5th avenue in Whitestone. Converting 5th avenue into a One Way Westbound (which is what the residents want) would not provide for safety of the people, make plenty of room for the cars to travel, maximize parking, (Heck they could even put in bike lanes)? This is exactly what we have been saying! For the past 15 years its residents have been requesting this change, demanding this change.

What is going on here?

MALBA GARDENS CIVIC ASSOCIATION

Bike lane backlash reaching fever pitch

From the NY Post:

Mayor Bloomberg conceded last night that his administration hasn’t done enough to consult with communities about bike lanes after irate residents of the Rockaways heckled a top Transportation Department official who extolled their virtues at a town hall meeting.

"Bicycle lanes are one of the more controversial things, obviously," the mayor said following the outburst at the Bayswater Civic Association.

"Some people love ‘em and some people hate them... It’s probably true that in many of these cases we could do a better job and we’re going to try to do that."

The meeting was proceeding routinely, dominated by local issues such as school closings and flooding, when Michael Gliner, a printing company owner, asked whether the bike lanes installed last summer on the main thoroughfare of Beach Channel Drive could be relocated.

Maura McCarthy, the Transportation Department’s Queens Borough Commissioner, responded that numerous neighborhoods were getting bike lanes and "Rockaway is one place we’re very proud to have put them in."

The boos that ensued from the crowd of about 250 were so loud that the moderator felt compelled to warn, "We will not have any of that at this meeting."

From the Brooklyn Paper:

Two former top city officials — including an ex-Transportation Commissioner who emphasized car travel over bikes during her tenure — have emerged as the principal leaders of the opposition to the city’s controversial Prospect Park West bike lane.

One day after the Department of Transportation announced last week that the lane has improved safety for drivers and cyclists, two members of the city’s old guard — former Sanitation Commissioner Norman Steisel and former Transportation boss Iris Weinshall — struck back, claiming that the agency fudged numbers to make the lane appear more successful than it is.

“We’re skeptical,” said Steisel, whose group is called Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes. “They’ve been opportunistic about the way they’ve used their numbers.”
Mac Support Store

Steisel said that current Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan is so driven by her passion for bicycles that she may be “pushing facts so hard that they don’t paint a proper picture of the truth.”

From the NY Post:

Two city councilmen are pressing Mayor Bloomberg and his bike-lane-loving transportation chief to require that any new bicycle lanes go through the same exhaustive public review as other road changes.

Staten Island Councilman James Oddo, the Republican minority leader, said plans for new bike lanes should undergo the city's lengthy environmental-assessment process, or the city should allow other, more minor traffic changes to bypass the review.

Oddo and Councilman Vincent Ignizio (R-SI) penned a letter last week demanding an explanation from Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith and Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, an avid cyclist and bike-lane proponent, of why the lanes don't require the scrutiny.

"The creation of bike lanes and the removal of vehicle travel lanes represent a major reordering of Department of Transportation priorities that may affect the environment and appear to qualify" for a formal environmental review, the letter reads.

Oddo told The Post, "To add one left-handed turning lane [on Staten Island], it's taking us eight to 12 years, yet there have been all of these bike lanes installed without any bumps in the road. How is that possible?"

From the NY Post:

The NYPD is "sick" of brazen bicyclists -- and has started a major campaign to slam the brakes on riders' out-of-control behavior.

Early this month, the police began a ticket blitz targeting bike scofflaws by handing out a slew of summonses to riders who refused to follow basic traffic-safety laws, sources told The Post.

In just the first two weeks of January in Manhattan, cops handed out nearly 1,000 tickets charging wayward riders with breaking the kind of laws many seem to constantly ignore: going the wrong way, running lights, making illegal turns and riding on the sidewalk.

"Bicyclists should travel like vehicles and must obey the same laws," said a police source familiar with the crackdown. "The department and the people are sick of it."

The sources said that bike riders -- including messengers and pedicab drivers -- had better get used to the hardened approach toward violations.

"It's from now until forever," a source said. "There is no set time."

The NYPD did not have the exact number of bicycle tickets written out in Manhattan over any other two-week period, but sources are sure they broke a record in early January.

"It's an all-time high," one high-ranking source said.

In addition to 979 Manhattan tickets, 315 were issued in Brooklyn and 167 were doled out in Queens.

Sources said that lawbreaking by cyclists has become the top quality-of-life complaint in some neighborhoods.

From the NY Post:

Not long ago, a confidant of Mayor Bloomberg's cornered me with a blunt question: "Can you figure out what his third term is about?"

I paused before offering the only thing I could think of: "Bike lanes?"

"Thank you very much," the frustrated Bloomy backer answered. "That's exactly my point."

Jerry Seinfeld made a successful TV show about nothing, but governing has to be about something. A year into his third term, even strong supporters wonder if Bloomberg has a clear focus.

It must be more than sailing through ribbon cuttings and gimmicks like splashing white paint on rooftops and streets to call yourself "green." Trips and speeches around the country definitely do not qualify.

What would qualify is a push that ties together the loose ends of the first two terms and secures the city's progress and his legacy. So far, there is no vision or energy for that closing argument.

But nature abhors a vacuum, so failures are defining City Hall. The snow disaster, the $80 million CityTime ripoff and citizen reports that the Bloomies are fudging data to defend unpopular policies help explain the mayor's 37 percent approval rating.

He said recently he hoped to be considered "the greatest mayor ever," but time is running out to make the kind of gains that could stand history's test.

Hevesi says Queens Blvd should clock in

From the Times Newsweekly:

Citing numerous accidents in which pedestrians have been seriously injured or killed on Queens Boulevard, Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi sent a letter to Queens Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Maura McCarthy urging the agency to install countdown clocks at highly trafficked intersections of Queens Boulevard in Forest Hills and Rego Park.

“The DOT took several years to allow for the use of these devices in New York City, despite evidence of successful implementation in other cities throughout the country,” Hevesi said in a statement. “Now that we have experienced the success of the countdown signal at 71st Avenue and Queens Boulevard, I urge, in the strongest terms possible, that the DOT take this further action immediately to protect the residents of these communities from injury and potential life threatening incidents.”

Hevesi asked the DOT to consider installing countdown clocks along Queens Boulevard at the intersections of Yellowstone Boulevard, 63rd Road, 66th Avenue, 70th Avenue and 78th Avenue.

New plan for traffic around Queens Center mall

From the Daily News:

In an effort to untangle the snarled traffic that drivers often encounter around Queens' most popular mall, the city Department of Transportation has unveiled a plan to ease congestion and make the area safer.

The agency's proposal would make a stretch of road behind the Queens Center Mall in Elmhurst one-way, diverting traffic to a less-crowded block nearby, Queens Transportation Commissioner Maura McCarthy said during a Community Board 4 public hearing Tuesday night.

"There are two reasons for doing this," McCarthy said. "One is to ease congestion and the other is to reduce the vehicle-pedestrian conflicts."

The plan would make 57th Ave., where the entrance to the mall's parking garage is located, one-way westbound between 90th and 92nd Sts. - both of which are already one-way.

This change would divert eastbound traffic onto 56th Ave., a residential block north of the mall, which is already one-way but would be converted from one lane to two.

"It will be two lanes so [residents] should not notice any additional traffic," McCarthy said.

The proposal is based on a traffic study of the area conducted during June and July. The study determined that in one hour on a typical weekday, 1,065 vehicles travel westbound on 57th Ave. and 137 drive eastward. On a weekend, 1,051 drive westbound and 530 travel eastbound.

McCarthy estimated that 1,140 vehicles would travel westbound on 57th Ave. if it was converted to a one-way street, and 56th Ave. would see about 300 more cars during an average hour.

Maura McCarthy stuck on stupid

From CBS 2:

The city Department of Transportation reacted speedily to correct a hazardous street condition exposed by CBS 2 this week.

The quick fix, though, may have created more problems for a neighborhood where residents claim they still have a possibly deadly road, reports CBS 2′s Marcia Kramer.

When Commissioner McCarthy visited the neighborhood to inspect the work, she was immediately set upon by residents.

“I think you’re wrong,” resident Sal Zito said.

“If a car is stuck here by accident, whatever, how do we get home?” Rosemarie Zito asked.

“You go around illegally,” McCarthy told her.

“You mean illegally, oh, thank you,” Rosemarie said.

(If video does not appear, click link.)

What the truck?

We are forwarding you a picture of an occurrence that happens every day, several times a day. Beginning at 6AM Tractor trailers and other Commercial Vehicles utilize 5th avenue in Whitestone Queens as a conduit to the entire surrounding area. 5th avenue is a 27 foot wide street minus 7 - 8 feet for parked cars on each side, it is a RESIDENTIAL STREET WITH 28 HOMES ON IT MANY OF THEM NEWLY RENOVATED. A STREET WITH OVER 20 CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF 15 LIVING ON IT. These Commercial Vehicles speed on our street, shake our foundations, set off car alarms and create a Dangerous situation for all families living on the Block. Yet, according to Maura McCarthy of Queens DOT, and Gene Kelty, Chair of Community Board 7, and President of Whitestone Boosters Beach, it is not a danger, just a mere inconvenience.

This on top of the 107 cars per hour which travel eastbound (33% speeding), is not enough to get the 3rd avenue exit on the Bridge pushed back to its original design of 7th avenue, not enough to make 5th and 4th avenues a ONE WAY WEST BOUND TOWARD THE BRIDGE, not enough to extend the already once extended concrete divider forcing cars to go down to 3rd avenue ( a 57foot wide street with 7 houses on the block and a park on the other side) which would then allow for enforcement of commercial vehicles who get off the wrong exit, not enough to do anything that will prevent damage and possibly tragedy.

Malba Gardens Civic Association

Thumbs up on the lawn sign! - QC

Traffic problems in Astoria

From the Daily News:

PLANS TO untangle the traffic knot at the foot of the Robert F. Kennedy Triboro Bridge may end up causing more problems for Astoria residents.

Cars traveling south on 31stSt. will no longer be able to turn left onto Astoria Blvd., leaving them to wind through narrow streets to access the Grand Central Parkway.

And local officials question the wisdom of putting bike lanes in an area where cars jockey to exit the highway and get onto the bridge.

"I've been asking for improvements to this intersection since the day I was elected," said City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., who has represented the area since 2002. "This is the first attempt at some major improvements. I support the goal, but some of the specifics go too far."

The plan was crafted by the city Department of Transportation in an effort to reduce congestion, ease crossings and provide more bicycle access in the area of Astoria Blvd. and 31st St.

Agency officials said about 300 traffic accidents occur at the intersection every year, along with 25 pedestrian accidents.

Borough Commissioner Maura McCarthy cited it as the highest accident location in northern Queens.

The plan also includes placement of a flashing red signal at 29th St. and Hoyt Boulevard South, changes in traffic-signal timing and new street markings.

Vallone (D-Astoria) said residents are especially troubled by the move to block left turns from 31st St. to Astoria Blvd.

They fear that will divert cars into neighborhood streets in search of an entrance to the Grand Central Parkway.

Agency officials said they will monitor traffic for six months to determine whether to keep the ban in place.

Jackson Heights a cauldron of corruption....wow!

"As I write this, the Art Deco Eagle Cinema on 73rd Rd. in Jackson Heights is being gutted to make way for a Rite-Aid drug store. The so-called Jackson Heights Historic Assn and so-called Jackson Heights Beautification Group have been totally silent on this, basically because they don't seem to recognize the part of Jackson Heights that lies west of "Little India" on 74th St. "Little India" has been failing for years; attendance was off over 50 per cent before its closing, which was blamed on a Mumbai studio strike in an article in the Times over a year ago. But while that Times article suggested the Bollywood cinema would revive after being shuttered, it was already known to local pols that the drug-store chain had made its move.

These phony civic groups have their match in local politics. A traffic survey commissioned by the Queens DOT (which used a consulting firm--who paid? from where?) and whose public forums were heavily attended by two elected officials (Dromm, Peralta) and one appointed via backroom deal (Den Dekker) reached several conclusions—part of a "solution" to the intense traffic and environmental assault along 73rd Street and 37th Avenue, its epicenter being that dreadful intersection (which Environmental Defense once labeled "a canyon of death.")

Now, why the person who advises Danny Dromm and serves as a go-between to the "godfather" of Tammany Hall East, Congressman Joe Crowley — the person who brokered the Den Dekker backroom deal — would have known about the conclusions of this report IN JUNE is already curious, because it would indicate that politics, and not necessarily sound planning, influenced this report. That would not be unusual, as there was a 1998 and a 2007 report that already made practical recommendations that the then-local-Councilperson (Helen Sears, for one) buried, because a major source of her campaign financing came from the Jackson Heights Indian Merchants Association, which wanted to push back residential parking and replace all of it with meters to accommodate the EXTRA vehicular traffic they wanted to attract from the burbs to the bargainland of JH.

And they want to turn the street in front of the Rite-Aid Theater into a pedestrian mall. Aside from the discussion we could have about how destroying all the movie theaters in a neighborhood will come back to bite the community (and JH has capitulated on all but one, which is in its death throes) when they wind up as check cashing places and crap merchants once the retail-store accommodation turns sour. And it will--with a Duane Reade a block away and FIVE MOM-AND-POP pharmacies along 37th Avenue before you reach 75th St., you have to wonder why the self-proclaimed "progressive" Mr. Dromm signed on to this travesty. Den Dekker, who NO ONE VOTED FOR and who lives in Woodside, is also on board.

The results of the current study, due to be presented in Sept at CB 3 for a kangaroo-court vote, has been held back for many months now--why? Maura McCarthy of the Queens DOT is a functionary, a puppet, she's proven that by years of inactivity and ineffectiveness in this district, for sure. One can only surmise that the Dems game plan is to use it as a carrot before this fall's election to make sure that the "team" wins and Hiram Monserrate goes down in flames. But that 'carrot' feels more like a stick to all residents west of 74th St, who have nothing to do with Hiram and his issues and are being sacrificed in the pursuit of partisan politics. It will be brutal for the residents of 37th Avenue, where the commercial trade ends and it becomes all residential down to the massively botched repair and redirection of entrance/exit of the BQE. We're already buried in noise, exhaust, 24-hr commercial activity, and no enforcement of traffic or sanitation law. (I would go as far as to say that the traffic report protects some really bad actors, including Apna Bazar and Subzi Mandi, both registered in Middlesex County, New Jersey, but major contributors to the JH Indian Merchants Assn, who in turn are major contributors to local pols.

I was once told, with a shrug—by the same Dromm-Crowley Dem party apparatchik I mentioned above—that the noise and traffic and environmental assault of western Jackson Heights was "mostly a cultural issue." In that context, the forthcoming traffic study; the destruction of the Eagle Cinema to make way for yet another chain drug store; the laissez-faire attitude about some of the most awful instant-ghetto buildings that have gone up on 73rd St. (self-certified by scammers); the accommodation of EVEN MORE vehicular traffic on a street that already is clogged and jammed all day long (just ask the Elmhurst Hospital ambulance drivers who cannot get through on 37th Ave west of 73rd St. NOW); the lack of enforcement needed here (foot patrol for the 115th ends at 74th St.) all says one thing to me: "Don't worry Jake, it's Chinatown."

We need your help!!!" - anonymous

Photo from Lost City

Downtown Flushing traffic plan revised

From the Times Ledger:

Business owners on 40th Road in Flushing got their way Monday when the city Department of Transportation announced it will not be reversing traffic and rerouting buses to the narrow downtown street as part of its new traffic mitigation plan.

The plan, which the DOT’s Queens Borough Commissioner Maura McCarthy announced last week will be implemented at the beginning of July, is aimed at comprehensively addressing the downtown area’s traffic woes.

Originally slated to make traffic on Main Street one-way in addition to other changes, the blueprint is now being billed as a “modified two-way” plan in which turns will be restricted or barred entirely onto and from some of the most heavily trafficked streets.

One change in the proposal will make it illegal for buses to turn from Main Street onto Roosevelt Avenue. In the plan revealed this past February, traffic would have been reversed on 40th Road, allowing buses to use the short stretch as a detour.

But the street’s many merchants howled at the plan, saying the estimated 40 buses an hour the proposal would bring to the block at peak times would cripple their businesses by blocking on-street parking, creating unsafe situations for drivers as well as pedestrians and causing intense traffic jams.

Malba's traffic problem

From the Times Ledger:

When Robert Moses built the Cross Island Parkway in the 1930s, cars taking what is now called the Third Avenue exit were able to enter the quiet neighborhood by 7th Avenue, a 70-foot-wide road Moses built to handle the anticipated traffic in the area.

That changed as the years passed. First, 7th Avenue was blocked from exiting traffic and in 1997 a divider was extended to keep highway traffic off Sixth Avenue.

As such, many residents say 3rd, 4th and 5th avenues have turned into speedways, with parents afraid to let their children play in their yards along the tree-lined streets.

So the Malba Gardens Civic, a group with dozens of members in the immediate area, sent out a poll asking area residents what should be done to address the situation, after which they proposed the city convert 4th and 5th avenues between Whitestone Expressway and 147th Street to one-way.

Maura McCarthy, the city Department of Transportation’s Queens borough commissioner, attended the meeting to respond to the civic’s proposal. She said since an October 2009 meeting when she first heard the concerns, the DOT has done several studies.

The department found that 107 cars passed down 5th Avenue between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. at an average of 27.9 miles per hour, with 31 percent of drivers speeding. But 3rd Avenue was more affected by traffic problems, the study showed, as 152 vehicles drove on the street between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. on the day of the study, while only 13 drove on 4th Avenue in the same period. Between 2004 and 2008, six car crashes occurred on 3rd, zero on 4th and two on 5th.

McCarthy said the city would not automatically make changes to the streets based on those statistics and that proposals to install stop signs or traffic lights are untenable as the volumes do not reach required thresholds.

DOT: Good at wasting time with studies. Bad at improving traffic.

Gene - nice bag. Prada or Gucci?