4 THE QUEENS COURIER • NOVEMBER 16, 2017 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
Bayside school community
knocks incoming bike lane
BY SUZANNE MONTEVERDI
smonteverdi@qns.com / @smont76
While the city works to install a safety
project outside of a Bayside school,
local community members with a list
of concerns are speaking out.
A protected bike lane, lane narrowing
and other changes are being made
outside of P.S. 213. Located at 231st
Street and 67th Avenue in the Oakland
Gardens section of the neighborhood,
the school is one of the locales
impacted by the city Department of
Transportation’s (DOT) larger safety
project for Bayside and Douglaston.
Cathy Grodsky, the school’s Parent-
Teacher Association (PTA) president,
spoke on behalf of the concerned
community at the Nov. 6 Community
Board 11 meeting.
Th e new street confi guration and bike
lane barrier will make already hectic
drop-off and pick-up conditions worse,
the PTA president claimed. And in the
winter, when snow is pushed out of the
roadway and into the barriers, children
will be unable to exit a car or bus safely
and make their way to the sidewalk to
enter the school, she continued.
“Th is project will be completely
unsafe for our children,” Grodsky said.
Additionally, the Bayside school
also houses a P.4 student population,
which consists of 60 autistic children
who exhibit fl ight-risk behaviors,
according to Grodsky. Th e projected
confi guration, which narrows
the travel lane by one foot and fl ips the
no parking lane and the bike lane, will
create “unacceptable and dangerous”
conditions for these learners.
“Simply put, your child will not be
able to get into the school safely and
the major traffi c concerns we already
have during arrival/dismissal will only
be made worse,” reads a fl yer Grodsky
and other community members have
begun distributing.
“Th is is just unacceptable and it
needs to be stopped,” Grodsky said to
board members. “While the city has
done studies on bike lanes and bikers,
not studies have been done on the
eff ect of a bike lane directly in front of
an elementary school.”
Grodsky told board members the
entire school community is in agreement
on the issue and has been working
with local elected offi cials.
“Th ere are 19 school buses that
pull up in front of our school,” she
said. “On a good day, it’s chaos. And
now the city has made a bad situation
worse.”
Th e DOT presented the plan to
Community Board 11 in June as part
of a larger safety project proposal,
which can be seen in its entirety
here. Community Board members
voted unanimously in favor of the
“Alley Pond” segment of the project in
June, while support for the Northern
Boulevard segment, which has been
under heavy community scrutiny, has
since been revoked.
Board chairperson Christine Haider
said that CB11 “will look into it” and
will support the school in their cause.
“Sometimes our hands are tied by
the agencies, as we’ve experienced
recently,” Haider said.
A DOT spokesperson said the city
agency began installing the project
last month “aft er receiving positive
feedback and a signifi cant amount of
community support, including unanimous
support from the local community
board.”
Th e project is an upgrade to the
existing lanes and creates “safer conditions
for all street users, especially
bicyclists who can use protected
bike lanes along the park from Joe
Michaels Mile to the Vanderbilt Motor
Parkway,” the spokesperson continued.
“As part of our work on this project,
we recently met with representatives
from P.S. 213 to get feedback
and we will be in touch with them
and other local stakeholders, including
the Community Board, with any next
steps,” the spokesperson said.
Grodsky said she is in the process of
draft ing a petition against the project
and is urging concerned residents to
contact the DOT.
Photo courtesy of NYC DDC
The Main Street sidewalks post-reconstruction project
Downtown Flushing’s
$7.8M infrastructure
project is complete
BY SUZANNE MONTEVERDI
smonteverdi@qns.com / @smont76
A massive infrastructure project has brought
wider sidewalks, smoother roads and other
improvements to downtown Flushing, city offi -
cials have announced.
In its fi rst reconstruction project in over 20
years, Main Street’s sidewalks have been widened
up to nine feet in areas from 38th to 41st
avenues. Th e extra space is meant to relieve
crowding by making pedestrian movement easier.
Th e $7.8 infrastructure project also upgraded
the area’s water mains, sewers, catch basins
and fi re hydrants and improved street lighting
and traffi c signals. It also brought high-strength
concrete reinforced bus pads and a new northbound
Select Bus Service lane between 40th
Road and Roosevelt Avenue to the area.
Main Street has been “reconstructed and
resurfaced from curb-to-curb,” according to the
city’s Department of Transportation (DOT).
Th e project was managed by DOT and the
Department of Design and Construction.
“Th ese newly widened sidewalks here on Main
Street will support more effi cient movement of
people on this key commercial corridor,” DOT
Queens Borough Commissioner Nicole Garcia
said. “Th is safety project also included major
infrastructure work that rehabilitated this street
through a complete reconstruction, something
that hasn’t been done in 20 years.”
City offi cials and Councilman Peter Koo gathered
on-site to celebrate the newly completed
project on Nov. 9.
“For far too long, Flushing’s sidewalks were
too small to accommodate the thousands of
people who commute here via bus, train and
car,” Koo said. “Now with as much as 9 feet
of new sidewalk space in some places, walking
down Main Street is a new and improved experience.
I was proud to contribute over $300,000
in funding toward this eff ort, and I want to
thank the DOT and DDC for working closely
with my offi ce over the last several years to make
sure this project best serves the people who live,
work and visit Flushing for years to come.”
Th e project in the busy corridor was fi rst
announced in July 2016. City offi cials enacted
traffi c pattern changes in the area to accommodate
construction.
Main Street is one of the busiest pedestrian
corridors throughout the city — bested only by
Times Square.
Photo via Google Maps
P.S. 213 in Bayside