Stop speeding on 147th Street!

The following pics are of yet another accident that occurred in the corner of 147 street an 5th avenue in Whitestone. This area has been besieged by speeding cars and reckless driving for years.

The local boys driving the Cadillac are said to have been driving at a high rate of speed (normal for this corner). They are fortunate they did not flip over and or injure themselves or some poor innocent pedestrian.

We have been trying to get traffic devices that would improve safety for years. All of which has fallen on dead ears. We have requested a 4 way stop sign and were denied. We requested an one way west bound on fifth avenue (this would limit the amount of cars and trucks as well as curtail the highway speed most drivers continue on the block). We have repeatedly requested speed humps on 147 street in order to curtail speeding. What have we gotten instead? Nothing! Why must we continue to wait until someone gets seriously hurt?

Remedy this now please.

For our elected officials receiving this email, your help is desperately needed.

Alfredo Centola
Community Activist

Safety concern in Springfield Gardens

From CBS 2:

Residents who live on 185th Street near 143rd Avenue in Springfield Gardens, Queens describe their neighborhood as a racetrack.

They told CBS 2′s Hazel Sanchez on Wednesday that cars whip around a dangerous, two-way curve, with no idea about what may come from the other direction.

There is a school and two day care centers located on 185th Street, and locals said they are surprised that a human has not been seriously hurt yet.

Donovan Richards, a spokesperson from City Councilman Sanders’ office, is now demanding that the Department of Transportation install speed bumps, traffic lights or signs.

Stupid sign mistake in Glendale

From Fox 5:

Traffic on 79th Street in Glendale, Queens, flows south from 78th Avenue to Myrtle Avenue. Plenty of signs on the block facing the right way warn drivers of speed bumps. But one warning sign on the block is basically useless.

Unless a motorist is going up the block the wrong way, he or she won't see the sign.

More unintended consequences of Maspeth Bypass

"I received this e-mail from a resident of West Maspeth over the weekend:

"Do you know that now that they have made Maurice Avenue a one-way going to the L.I.E. that they have made a raceway for the kids? They have already been racing here. The lanes are super wide and they don't have to worry about vehicles going the other way. It's only a matter of time before someone gets killed."

Earlier this year, DOT installed speed humps on the part of Maurice Avenue north of the expressway to stop the drag racing that was going on there and it worked like a charm. But they can't do that on this stretch of road because they rerouted the Q39 bus to make stops along Maurice, and we were told that DOT cannot install speed humps on bus routes. I'm not sure what the solution is to this problem other than to change Maurice Avenue back to a two-way street. The NYPD has been informed about the drag racing and said they will monitor the situation, but they can't be down there every night." - Christina Wilkinson

Things that go 'bump' in the night

From the Daily News:

After 49th St. was repaved in December, the city Department of Transportation did not re-paint white warning strips on the speed bumps, between 28th and 25th Aves., locals said. And since then, hapless drivers have had bone-jarring encounters with the bumps, especially late at night.

"My house is rumbling," said John Warren, 45, a father of three who lives on 49th St. near the speed bumps.

It's especially unnerving when trucks pass through, taking an illegal shortcut to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, locals said.

City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Astoria) said his office notified the Transportation Department about the unpainted bumps on Dec. 8, but has yet to hear a reply.

"It's like a motorist being ambushed by a camouflaged death trap on the street," Vallone said.

Before the bumps were installed in 2005, the street used to be a "raceway" for speeding vehicles, residents said.

But the speed bumps haven't slowed everyone down.

"People [speed] purposefully because they want to see how airborne they can get," Warren said.