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THE NEWSPAPER OF FLUSHING, AUBURNDALE, KEW GARDENS HILLS & FRESH MEADOWS
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CB 7 members question bike lane plan
CHEERING ACROSS THE BOROUGHS
BY CARLOTTA MOHAMED
Community Board 7
members didn’t seem convinced
Monday night of a proposed
Flushing bike lane network
presented by Department of
Transportation (DOT) officials,
whose goal is to improve
bicycling conditions in the
community.
Approximately 50 board
members and residents listened
to DOT officials as they explained
their Bicycle and Greenway
Project proposal, a part of the
city’s Vision Zero initiative
on March 11 at Union Care
Plaza, located at 33-23 Union St.
in Flushing.
“There are a lot of pedestrian
injuries and fatalities in
the community that should
not be happening and are
preventable,” said Michael
Pedron, DOT project manager
of the Bicycle and Greenway
Program. ”We want to create
safe places for folks to ride in the
neighborhood.”
The DOT proposal aims to
improve the safety of all road
users, respond to communitydriven
planning process,
increase bicycle network
coverage, creation of new
connections to jobs, parks,
neighborhoods, and existing
bicycle facilities, in addition to
no parking or lane removal.
The existing bike network in
Queens’ Community District 7
has low coverage with a number
of greenways along the edges of
the community, yet there are
few connections on the streets
that allow people to access parks
and other facilities, according to
the DOT.
“One of the reasons that this
is a condition is that Flushing
is a tight grid and there’s a lot
of different orientations of the
street network that make it
kind of difficult to establish
these group connections,” said
Pedron. “What we have now is
The Forest Elementary PTA hosted its third annual cheer and dance completion in partnership with the Greater Ridgewood Youth
Council, IS 93 and Grover Cleveland High School. Competing athletes hail from 25 schools participating from Queens, Brooklyn, and
the Bronx. Photo by Bruce Adler
an opportunity to make those
connections and bring folks to
those surrounding parts.”
“The new bike route includes
Willets Point Boulevard, north/
south of Parsons and Union
as a pair, an east/west pair on
Sanford and Cherry on 43rd Ave
with additional connections on
Kissena Boulevard and Queens
Borough Hill on 59th and 60th
Avenue,” Pedron added.
The DOT has been conducting
community outreach events
since 2015 with the Department
of Health and Mental
Hygiene’s “Building Healthy
Communities,” where they’ve
received requests from residents
for bike lanes, according
to Pedron.
Overall, Pedron said the
community has requested direct
bike routes between major
destinations such as downtown
Flushing, parks/greenways,
transit, more bike parking, but
no impact to buses, parking
or congestion.
However, CB 7 member Kim
Ohanian opposed the proposal,
arguing that a bike lane will lead
to more deaths and fatalities.
“I’m sorry but I cannot and
will not ever support this plan.
You’re planning on putting a
bike lane on my street in front of
my house,” said Ohanian, who
lives on 59th Avenue off of Main
Street. “You can’t be serious
with all of the truck traffic and
parking that the hospital needs
because they park all over our
neighborhood. How in god’s
name do you think this will
work without somebody getting
killed?”
Other board members
brought up concerns of narrow
streets, drivers ignoring bike
lane pavement markings, and
enforcement on cyclists who
don’t obey rules of the road.
“Automobiles have to
carry insurance, what about
the bicycles that crash into
automobiles? They don’t carry
insurance. Who’s responsible
then? Is my insurance company
going to have to pay for the
bicycle?” Kim Cody asked.
The DOT plans on
continuing its community
outreach throughout the rest
of the year. They’re hoping to
implement a combination of a
shared and conventional lane
on 30-feet wide streets, that will
both alert drivers to watch for
bikes, mark space to pass in
lane, discourage speeding, and
increase predictability.
Vol. 28 No. 11 56 total pages
/QNS.COM