Forget it Jakie, it's the Department of Transportation Alternatives

 

NY Post

The city Department of Transportation struck out on this one.

Big Apple DOT officials botched a Queens road sign for the Jackie Robinson Parkway, misspelling the color-barrier-busting baseball Hall of Famer’s name.

The sign at Myrtle Avenue and Forest Park Drive features a likeness of the Brooklyn Dodgers’ great — atop the words “Jakie Robinson Parkway.”

“It’s embarrassing,” Glendale native Kira Incantalupo told The Post on Sunday. “Poor Jackie Robinson.

“That shouldn’t have happened,” said Incantalupo, 37. “I mean, nobody wants to have that. It’s a memorial for somebody. It should be corrected.”

Local resident Quana Martin, 32, found the typo disrespectful.

“I just feel it’s a little odd because how do you not know how to spell his name? He’s a well-known figure.”

Queens teen JP Ward had a harsher take.

“It’s f–king stupid,” the 17-year-old said. “I wouldn’t say it’s disrespectful, but it’s definitely stupid.”

Robinson became the first black ball player in Major League Baseball when he was called up by the Dodgers in 1947, breaking the sport’s decades-old color barrier.

He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962, a decade before his death.

“This spelling mistake is absurd,” City Councilman Robert Holden added of the road-sign typo on Sunday. “You don’t have a few eyes looking at these signs? DOT is a mess.

Question: When did anyone call number 42 "JR"?

NYS DOT Kew Gardens Interchange and Urban Forest Denuding in Progress

Greetings Assemblywoman Rozic,

During a drive-by on Friday 1 March 2019 of the Phase 3 NYS DOT Kew Gardens interchange Project  I was absolutely shocked and appalled of what is viewed as the most egregious denuding and wholesale logging operation of recent years in central Queens by NYS DOT of our invaluable urban trees.   The actions of NYS DOT planners and engineers and that of their contractor Halmar is the deliberate elimination from the landscape of hundreds of invaluable large urban trees that have served as a vital buffer between the highly traveled and congested Union Tpke and the Grand Central Parkway (GCP) from the neighboring residents and community- now lost.  More removals of large trees are targeted in forthcoming weeks, eliminating the term "parkway" from the GCP.  I am sure you find this action by DOT similarly shocking.  And you should be shocked, if for anything but for the full range of human health and environmental benefits that these trees once provided and with significant ecological and monetary returns delivered for nearly a century.   

 

 What has occurred here is unacceptable especially at a time that so much is known about the urban tree organism as they exist in densely populated urban areas.  Current tree science has revealed that urban trees are vital to healthy living, improve and enhances quality of life, sequesters vast tonnage of carbon annually, captures harmful particulate matter (PM2.5) from vehicle exhaust etc.  That trees directly deliver these benefits to people, the environment and as habitat and to have been ignored by key players from NYS DOT is a testament that nothing has changed about environmental awareness, sustainability and resiliency in the City of NY or by the State for the Boro of Queens. It is business as usual.  

 

It is hard to imagine that an Environmental Impact and Analysis Statement by Region 11 NYS DOT that would have been required for this project for Queens did not set off alarms about the consequences by the loss of such massive volume of important tree canopy. But classic in its methodology and by indifference NYS DOT has fully ignored the importance of our urban trees, and instead has chosen to plundered what is our only important living natural resource across our urban space.  

A kind request that you inquire with NYS DOT for a copy of their project Environmental Impact Statement specific to the wholesale elimination of all of these public trees within the project footprint and pursue a halt to the ongoing denuding so that alternative design plans are able to reflect effective tree preservation rather than wholesale logging.  There is also legitimate purpose to pursue on behalf of the constituency and their "public trees", a restitution of the full value of the individual trees now removed along with the quantifiable dollar amount of the future benefits and services that those trees are no longer able to deliver.    

Bear in mind, that these large veteran trees can never ever be replaced..

Thank you and I await your reply.  

Carsten W Glaeser Ph.D. 

It's time to resume pickups

"The department of Highways used to cleanup the adjacent land immediately off of the Jackie Robinson parkway, That hasn’t happened now for the last couple of years !! The trash is piling up it mostly comes from the cars passing by on their way east and west tossing their bottles and cans, baby carriages, overnight bags, partially eaten fast food and assorted other items out the window and over the fence on to the grass hills around 82 and 83 Avenue’s…

With the upcoming modifications of the highway and adjacent area’s it’s imperative that they resume their cleanup responsibilities associated with their property on behalf of the City of New York." - anonymous

End-of-year start for work on Jackie Robinson Parkway

From the Queens Chronicle:

A massive two-year project is slated to begin at the end of this year to completely overhaul the entire length of the Jackie Robinson Parkway.

The $12 million project, announced at last week’s Community Board 5 meeting, will be done by the state Department of Transportation. The work includes resurfacing the entire length from Pennsylvania Avenue in Brooklyn to the Kew Gardens interchange, taking out the existing asphalt overlay and putting in a new one, changing all signs to make them more visible, more reflective and more readable, putting reflectors on the outer guide rails and inner concrete barrier, which is especially important where the parkway makes sharp turns through the Glendale cemeteries, clearing some mounds to enhance drivers’ sight distance on the eastbound side at Metropolitan Avenue in Forest Hills and building a retaining wall there.

The state DOT said the work will require closure of all lanes in particular segments of the roadway at times.

“This project will follow the principles of Gov. Cuomo’s Drivers First Initiative which focuses on minimizing the impact of roadway construction on traffic,” said NYSDOT spokeswoman Diane Park in an email. “To meet this goal, the department has specifically planned the work schedule so that construction will occur at night, when traffic volume is lowest.”

According to Park, the work will be done one section at a time, permitting all other sections of the parkway to remain open and traffic will be detoured at the designated section. She said the department will post signs clearly directing drivers back to the parkway.

Boy stabbed and thrown from car

QUEENS (WABC) -- Police are looking for the suspects who stabbed a 12-year-old boy and then apparently tossed him from a car.

According to authorities, FDNY/EMS responded to the scene around 9:15 Saturday night.

They say a woman spotted the boy staggering alongside Jackie Robinson Parkway near Cypress Avenue in Queens.

Reports say the boy was stabbed a dozen times in the back and neck, and then thrown out of a moving car.

The boy was rushed to Jamaica Hospital in critical condition.

Police were looking for at least two suspects, but further information was not immediately available.

Tow truck driver helps cops nab thieves

From the Daily News:

A hero tow truck driver helped bust a crew of car thieves this week when he followed a stolen vehicle across two boroughs and pointed the suspects out to police.

Cops said the bandits may be responsible for as many as eight other car heists, cops said.

Vinnie Lanzieri, 44, was driving his Performance Automotive tow truck in Queens about midnight Wednesday when he heard on his police scanner that a 38-year-old man had been held up at gunpoint and pulled out of his 2008 Cadillac Escalade in Rego Park, he said.

Moments later, Lanzieri spotted the stolen SUV at a red light at Woodhaven and Yellowstone Blvds. in Forest Hills.

The stolen vehicle made a dash to the Jackie Robinson Parkway with a Blazer following close behind, Lanzieri said.

"They were flying down it," Lanzieri said, adding that the thugs soon dumped the stolen SUV on a dead-end street off Pennsylvania Ave. in East New York, Brooklyn, and began to flee in the second vehicle. Lanzieri saw a marked squad car from Transit District 33 nearby and flagged down the officers, he said.

"I told them what happened," Lanzieri said. "The two cops took them out at gunpoint and had them on the floor in 30 seconds."

Kew Gardens Interchange slated for $400M,10-year upgrade

From NY1:

A state project is slated to tackle the traffic problems created by several major highways that meet in Kew Gardens Hills.