By Michael V. Cusenza
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr., elected officials and civic leaders from across Queens hosted a press conference on Tuesday in Queens Village to call on the City to immediately clean the borough’s dirty roadway medians and reimagine how it maintains them.
In recent weeks, the Queens Borough President’s Office has compiled a database of 205 overgrown or unsightly medians — featuring tall weeds, overgrown bushes, dead trees, litter and even illegally dumped items like car parts. Approximately half of these medians are in Eastern Queens, while other dirty locations were found in neighborhoods like Astoria, Woodside, East Elmhurst and Fresh Meadows.
Photo Courtesy of Borough President’s Office
In recent weeks, the Queens Borough President’s Office has compiled a database of 205 overgrown or unsightly medians.
Richards at the press conference called on the City to centralize roadway median maintenance within one agency and detailed his support for pending legislation in the City Council to do exactly that.
“Instead of agencies passing the buck on whose job it is, our bill would mandate that the Department of Transportation clean every median once a year. It would also create a tracking system for residents to see when their median was last cleaned,” Richards noted.
He later added, “At the end of the day, Queens streets deserve the same care and maintenance as any other street. Would the City ever let Park Avenue look like this? It’s not too much to ask for streets that are both safe and clean. Our families and our communities deserve it.”
