Locals Petition For Speed Bumps, Safer Streets In Kew Gardens

KEW GARDENS, QUEENS -- A petition to add speed humps, parking spaces and other recommended safety measures along a Kew Gardens road is gaining traction.

More than 150 residents have signed the "116 Street Safety First" petition on GoPetition.org demanding Community Board 9 reconsider the NYC Department of Transportation's slew of safety and parking recommendations for 116th Street after the board them down in February.

MK Moore, a CB 9 member and 116th Street resident, wrote in the petition he and others initially pushed the board in February 2016 to request a DOT traffic survey to help come up with solutions for the road's "dangerous traffic conditions and horrible parking conditions."

The DOT came back to the board two years later recommending two feasible speed humps, a redirection of one-way traffic and the return of more than 25 parking spaces to 116th Street after several traffic surveys determined cars were speeding down the residential road at nearly twice its 25 mph speed limit, Moore writes.

Despite the DOT's input, CB 9 opted to vote against the changes "based on a single-family home owner complaining that brake squealing would disrupt their peace on 116th Street," Moore writes.

Moore was not immediately available for comment.

The petition, directed at CB 9 and Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, asks the board implement all DOT-recommended safety measures for 116th Street and restore all available parking spaces that had been converted to No Standing Zones.

"Kew Gardens is a diverse community of renters, coop/condo owners and home owners," Moore writes. "Community Board 9 has responded wrongly to the request of a few home owners and denied the renter, coop/condo owners their representation in spite of their signed petition."

But Kenichi Wilson, chair of CB 9's transportation committee, told Patch there was more opposition than support for the speed humps and they weren't among the safety measures recommended by the DOT.

He said a DOT study found the four original requested speed bump locations unfeasible and instead offered two alternate spots several blocks away - one between Curzon Road and 84th Avenue and another between 84th and 85th avenues - that residents in the area didn't want.

"Normally, we like the speed hump requests to come from people on the particular block, because they're only really effective in that area," he said. "So far we've had only negative feedback."

The petition prompted him to send an email for feedback on the posed speed bumps to each address on the blocks affected by them - around 31 houses, Wilson said. the transportation committee will review that feedback at its next meeting May 22.

If a 60 percent majority of the houses want the speed bumps, the committee will recommend them at the board's next full meeting on June 12, Wilson said. That's also when the board is slated to vote on the DOT-recommended parking spots and one-way conversion, which he noted are entirely separate from the speed humps.

“The DOT doesn't really recommend speed humps one way or another," he said. "They just determine whether or not they'll be feasible in the locations requested."

(Lead photo via Shutterstock)

This article was updated on 05/14/2018 with comment from Community Board 9 Transportation Committee Chair Kenichi Wilson.