Editorials

Editorial: Time for traffic tamers

May 8, 2013 Editorial Staff
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We applaud the city’s Department of Transportation for instituting a School Safety Zone along Ridge Boulevard between 84th and 92nd Streets.

That short stretch of road has four schools – Adelphi Academy, P.S. 185, DGK Holy Cross School and Visitation Academy – along it, so that well over 1,000 children and their parents will benefit from the changes, which included a reduced speed limit (from 30 MPH to 20 MPH) that will make it easier and less dangerous to cross the street.

The designation of Ridge Boulevard, however, is just the beginning. We believe that it is critically important to make the streets adjacent to the area’s myriad schools – particularly those situated on major thoroughfares — safer for students.

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Christa McAuliffe Intermediate School, I.S. 187, for example, is situated at the busy intersection of 65th Street and 12th Avenue. Because the city does not provide school crossing guards for middle schools, students at I.S. 187 must navigate 65th Street – which often borders on the chaotic, especially during the morning rush hour – on their own.

Among the problems along the strip – which is a designated local truck route — are speeding and U-turns, both of which endanger pedestrians young and old who step off the curb.

School officials have been asking for traffic-calming measures such as plastic bollards down the center of the road to deter U-turns and a prohibition on left turns at certain hours to make the street more pedestrian-friendly before someone is badly injured.

Currently, DOT is doing a study of the area to see what, if any changes are warranted, not only near I.S. 187 but along the strip between Fourth and 14th Avenues.

We believe the agency should move ahead quickly on taming traffic near McAuliffe. The lives and safety of too many youngsters depend upon it.


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