Delivery Worker's Death Prompts Calls To Make 24th Avenue Safer

ASTORIA, QUEENS — The death of a restaurant delivery worker who crashed his scooter on 24th Avenue last month is prompting safe streets advocates and elected officials to double down on efforts to make the Astoria street safer for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians.

City Council Member Costa Constantinides assembled a group of elected officials and advocates this week to push the city's Department of Transportation to study possible new safety measures along 24th Avenue between 21st and 37th Streets.

The avenue, which feeds onto Astoria Boulevard and the Grand Central Parkway, has long functioned like a "piecemeal highway," Constantinides said. It also serves as a truck route between 21st Street and 29th Street, where the route veers south to funnel trucks onto the RFK/Triborough Bridge.

New buildings in the neighborhood, plus the opening of the new CTown supermarket at 32nd Street earlier this year, have increased traffic on the roads and the sidewalks.

But the issue took on renewed urgency with the Sept. 23 fatal crash of Mariano Canales, who was on a scooter when he collided with a minivan at the intersection of 24th Avenue and 33rd Street.

"Over the last two years, this vital thoroughfare has become incredibly unsafe —fatal in at least one case —and begs City intervention," Constantinides wrote in a letter Tuesday to Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg.

Asked about 24th Avenue, a spokesperson for the Department of Transportation, which typically analyzes every spot where someone is killed in a crash for possible safety improvements, said only that the agency is reviewing the requests.

Constantinides said the Department of Transportation has previously denied several of his requests for specific changes along 24th Avenue, including changing its designation as a truck route, but he's asking officials to give it another look.

“I’ve seen too many close calls," he said.