Queens Ledger on Barnett Ave

03/13/2008
DOT's Sunnyside stroll leads to new traffic plans
By Jeremy Walsh
A long-neglected thoroughfare in Sunnyside Gardens will soon get a makeover from the city Transportation Department. DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan toured the site along with City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) last week, developing a series of short-term solutions until capital improvements can be made.
As a result, Barnett Avenue may become a one-way street later this spring, pending a resolution from Community Board 2 on whether the street should run westbound or eastbound. CB 2 Chairman Joe Conley said the board would take the issue up at its April 6 meeting.In addition to the one-way conversion, Sadik-Khan suggested using some of the space gained to add painted parking spaces and incorporate a walking area on the asphalt between the new parking spaces and the shoulder.Residents who use the road were pleased by the news."This was always the back street of Sunnyside and it needs development," said resident Dorothy Cavallo, who has lived in the neighborhood for 50 years.Resident Ciaran Staunton said he and others have been complaining for years about the state of the road, which runs parallel to the Long Island Rail Road tracks between 48th Street and Woodside Avenue. The narrow road is open to two-way traffic and allows parking along its northern side. All that and a lack of sidewalks create a hazardous situation for neighborhood residents who walk to Starbucks Tower Square, the major shopping center at Woodside Avenue and Northern Boulevard, Staunton said."In fact, Ms. Quinn almost got hit the last time she was here," Staunton said. "It wasn't done on purpose, but the publicity would have been good."City Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Sunnyside), who grew up in the neighborhood, agreed that the street needed serious improvement."This has been unsafe and unsightly my entire life," he saidBut further improvements, such as building sidewalks, will have to wait until 2012, when the city Environmental Protection Department will get $1.9 million for capital improvements, Conley said.Quinn and the DOT also visited a residential block of 46th Street, where residents have been clamoring for speed bumps since the death of an 11-year-old girl in 2004. Hallie Geier was walking her dog when she stepped out from between two cars and was fatally struck by an oncoming motorist, Conley said."Anything we could do to make it safer for the children would be worth doing," said CB 2 member James Van Bramer."People take the corner, see the green light and race for it," said resident Tonia Moore, 36, who circulated a speed bump petition last year among her neighbors. "We have to slow the traffic down."Michael Primeggia, deputy DOT traffic commissioner, said the DOT would conduct a study of the street. If a suitable spot is found, work on the speed bump could start as early as June, he said.