By Forum Staff
Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday announced that the City has been awarded $29.75 million in federal funding through the “Safe Streets and Roads for All” program. The grant is a part of the more than $1 billion in funding secured by the city’s Federal Infrastructure Funding Task Force, chaired by Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi, under the Adams administration. The grant — supported by U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and U.S. Reps. Nydia Velázquez and Grace Meng — will support permanently redesigning a section of Queens Boulevard in Woodside, as well as enhanced analysis of traffic injuries with health data. It will also allow the City to dramatically expand its use of intelligent speed assistance (ISA) technology to 1,700 additional city fleet vehicles.
The federal grant award includes $23.75 million to redesign Queens Boulevard from Roosevelt Avenue to 73rd Street. Until DOT began redesigning Queens Boulevard in 2015, it was one of the most dangerous thoroughfares in the entire city. Between 2009 and 2014, 42 people died or suffered serious injuries on this stretch of Queens Boulevard — once known as the “Boulevard of Death.” To save lives as quickly as possible, DOT used in-house resources to install a range of proven, interim safety treatments along the corridor. Those initial treatments reduced total crashes by 13 percent, pedestrian injuries by 42 percent, cyclist injuries by 12 percent, and total injuries by 4 percent.
Courtesy of NYC DOT
The $29.75 million needed to fund the upgrades has been secured through the “Safe Streets and Roads for All” program.
The project is Phase A of a broader plan to upgrade the existing painted safety treatments along the Queens Boulevard corridor with concrete, solidifying the temporary improvements delivered in recent years. Construction is expected to begin in fall of 2024 and take three years. The improvements will include:
- Expanding and reconstructing the service road medians by providing a continuous, raised pedestrian mall and grade-separated bicycle path for the first time.
- Reconfiguring several slip ramps to improve safety for all road users, reduce crossing distances, and create calmer, more predictable driving behavior.
- Improving accessibility at all bus stops.
- Installing a planted buffer and vertical barrier to protect pedestrians from the traffic on the mainline of Queens Boulevard.
- Adding new lighting, public seating, and landscaping.
“Every New Yorker — drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians alike — deserves to feel safe on our streets, and this $30 million investment from the Biden-Harris administration will supplement the additional $1 billion in federal funding our administration has already received to keep New Yorkers safe on our roads,” Adams said. “These funds will bring much-needed safety infrastructure to Queens Boulevard, help us understand how e-bikes have changed our streetscape, and expand efforts to make our city fleet as safe as possible. Public safety is the prerequisite to prosperity, and that is why our administration has fought for real investments in our city’s traffic safety.”
The grant award also includes $3.6 million for DOHMH to expand health data collection on serious crash injuries of micromobility users. These projects will use mortality and hospital data to more fully describe the person injured and the injury as more and more New Yorkers embrace e-bikes and e-scooters. This data will better inform the city’s policymaking and efforts to redesign streets to reduce deaths and serious injuries among micromobility users.
Lastly, the grant award includes $2.4 million to expand New York City’s use of active ISA technology to an additional 1,700 fleet vehicles. In August 2022, Adams and DCAS Commissioner Pinnock launched a pilot program to add active ISA technology in 50 city vehicles, restricting maximum speeds and ensuring almost universal compliance with speed limits across 750,000 miles traveled. Paired with additional technological improvements, the implementation of this tool has led to a 20 percent decrease in crashes involving city vehicles.
This is the second consecutive year in which the city has been awarded ‘Safe Streets and Roads for All’ funding. Last year, the city secured $21 million in federal funds to advance traffic safety, with $18 million of those dollars going to rebuild Delancey Street in Manhattan.
“This substantial federal investment from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will help New York City implement multiple lifesaving and traffic efficiency measures on Queens Boulevard. From elevated crosswalks, pedestrian malls and refuge islands, to enhanced medians and elevated, protected bike lanes, Mayor Adams is prioritizing improvements to increase the safety of pedestrians, cyclists and motorists alike,” Schumer said. “These federal funds empower New York City to strengthen roadway safety by implementing proven measures that will reduce injuries and traffic related incidents and improve efficiency. I’m proud to deliver this federal grant that will help improve the safety of this central roadway, and help save lives by driving forward much needed safety features, stopping accidents before they happen, and laying the foundation for safer and more efficient streets.”
“I’m glad to have worked to secure these millions of dollars to make Queens Boulevard safer in my congressional district,” Meng said. “Queens Boulevard is a major artery in our borough, but we’ve seen over the years that it has also been a dangerous thoroughfare with many accidents causing deaths and serious injuries. This crucial federal money will ensure that more is being done to protect those who use Queens Boulevard, and it will go a long way toward saving lives. I’m thrilled that Queens continues to benefit from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that I helped pass in Congress. As New York’s representative on the House of Representatives’ Regional Leadership Council — which works to promote and implement legislation signed by President Biden — I will keep up the fight for our city and state.”
Earlier this month, Adams launched a three-pronged effort specifically focused on improving safety at intersections. Under this initiative, Adams said the City will make safety improvements to intersections at double its current rate, the City Police Department will add traffic violence to its regular CompStat reporting, and the administration will make significant safety upgrades to City vehicles and vehicles of city contractors and licensees to make more vehicles safer across the five boroughs.
