The Vision Zero Great Streets funding includes $100 million to be used to improve segments of Queens Boulevard.
The de Blasio administration has included $100 million in the Capital Budget to transform Queens Boulevard into a more secure thoroughfare, according to the Department of Transportation.
In a City Council hearing last week, DOT officials detailed Vision Zero Great Streets, a $250 million initiative dedicated to changing four high-crash arterial roads in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx to “truly safe streets.”
The routes are Queens Boulevard, 4th Avenue and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, and the Grand Concourse in the Bronx.
According to the DOT, more than 60 percent of pedestrian fatalities in the five boroughs occur on 15 percent of city streets. On Queens Boulevard, from 2009 through 2013, 55 pedestrians were killed or seriously injured; during the same period on 4th Avenue, 60 pedestrians were killed or seriously injured; Atlantic Avenue saw 64 pedestrians killed or seriously injured in that four-year span; and on the Grand Concourse, 70 pedestrians were killed or seriously injured.
Many of the corridors with the highest rates of fatal- and severe-injury pedestrian crashes per mile are wide roads that divide neighborhoods and communities, “but have the potential to serve as connectors,” agency officials noted.
The Great Streets funding will be used to improve segments of Queens Boulevard, a 7.2 mile, complex, multi-roadway corridor nefariously dubbed the “Boulevard of Death” and cuts across more than half the borough. The long crossing distances, high traffic speeds and highway-like urban design have contributed to historically high crash rates, according to the DOT.
In January 2015, the NYPD, DOT and 100 residents, merchants and other stakeholders participated in the first Queens Boulevard design workshop. This meeting yielded requests and suggestions, including calmed service roads, improved crossings, the addition of a protected bike lane, and beautification. DOT is currently considering the input received and intends to design and implement solutions this year, the agency explained, and simultaneously begin planning for the long-term capital-funded changes needed to permanently remake the boulevard’s battered image.
According to Transportation, Great Streets will “rethink and redesign” all four major corridors in order to prevent serious crashes, enhance mobility, increase accessibility, and enhance neighborhood vitality.
Additionally, Great Streets capital projects will be fast-tracked in order to allow a permanent build-out of street improvements made initially with temporary materials. DOT indicated that residents could begin to see construction of expanded pedestrian space, beautified medians, and physically separated bike paths on major streets by 2017.
By Michael V. Cusenza
