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25 MPH: Canal St, Bway*, (Southern/Queens/Northern Blvds), Eastern Pkwy, Gun Hill Rd, Forest Av

Posted by Gold_12th on Thu May 1 23:19:24 2014

Expect to see slower-moving traffic on Canal Street this summer.

The mile-and-a-half stretch of Canal Street from West Street to East Broadway is one of nine new arterial slow zones announced Thursday by the Department of Transportation.

Traffic on Canal Street will be reduced to 25 miles per hour and accompanied by signal timing changes, distinctive signage and increased enforcement by the NYPD. That will include temporary speed boards installed in key locations to make motorists aware of the new speed limit, the DOT said in a statement.

The new designation is intended to make the roadway safer for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists. Canal Street has seen six fatalities since 2008, according to the DOT

“Sometimes it seems as if Canal Street is a perpetual slow zone – but slowing down traffic on Canal, which bustles with bicycles, pedestrians and vehicles all day long, is the right thing to do,” said State Sen. Daniel Squadron. “This heavy volume of road use is exactly what makes Canal Street a candidate for an arterial slow zone.

State Sen. Brad Hoylman also praised the new slow zone, saying that Broadway and Canal Street are “two of the most dangerous roadways in my district.”

Eight other slow zones across the city were announced Thursday, including Atlantic Avenue and Grand Concourse corridors in Brooklyn and the Bronx, respectively, which have seen more than 20 fatalities since 2008, according to the DOT. The slow zones are part of the city’s Vision Zero Action Plan to end traffic deaths and injuries.
http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20140501/lower-east-side/canal-street-turned-into-slow-zone-increase-safety

Drivers will need to get used to slowing down on one Manhattan's busiest streets, as the city announced plans Thursday to turn an 8.3-mile stretch of Broadway into a slow zone.

The stretch, which runs from Columbus Circle on the Upper West Side to West 220th Street in Inwood, would see its speed limit decreased from 30 miles-per-hour to 25. DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg said the move, part of New York's larger Vision Zero traffic safety initiative, would reduce fatalities along a street that has seen 22 pedestrian deaths since 2008.

"The de Blasio administration is charging full speed ahead to make Broadway safer," Trottenberg said at a press conference announcing the changes, which will be implemented in July.

Trottenberg was joined by City Council Transportation Committee Chairman Ydanis Rodriguez, Councilman Mark Levine, State Sen. Adriano Espaillat, NYPD Transportation Chief Thomas Chan and traffic safety advocates.

"We have to reduce speeding because speeding kills," Rodriguez said.

Broadway would be New York's fourth major street to be turned into an arterial slow zone, after Atlantic Avenue and McGuiness Boulevard in Brooklyn and Grand Concourse in the Bronx. Trottenberg said while traffic-heavy arterial streets make up 15 percent of city streets, they account for 60 percent of traffic fatalities.

“It’s no surprise that in all the town halls that we’ve been holding across the city, in every conversation that I’ve had, the number one thing I hear from New Yorkers is that they want us to do something about these arterial streets,” Trottenberg said.

The slow zone runs near 15 schools and will pass through seven police precincts. Chan said that the NYPD will reach out to each precinct's commanding officer to ensure that speed reductions are enforced at all hours.

Deputy Inspector Chris Morello, head of the 34th Precinct, said that his officers would work to enforce not only speeding, but would issue summonses for drivers who used their cellphones for talking or texting while driving, as well those that did not wear their seatbelts.

The 34th Precinct has been criticized in the past for a relative lack of speeding tickets issues by officers, but Morello said he would make sure that speeding drivers were issued summonses.

"We're going to make a concerted effort to enforce the speed restrictions," Morello said. "It's something we want to work on."

Thursday's press conference took place at the busy Broadway, Dyckman Street and Riverside Drive intersection, and Trottenberg gave an update on the DOT's plan to ban left turns, shorten cross walks and institute other traffic calming measures, saying that the work would begin on the intersection at the end of May and would be complete by the summer.

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20140501/inwood/speed-limit-be-reduced-on-broadway-above-columbus-circle-dot-says

The city will lower the speed limit on Northern Boulevard and Queens Boulevard in the coming months, city officials announced Thursday, two of several roadways in the city to be dubbed "arterial slow zones" as part of the de Blasio administration's Vision Zero Initiative.

The speed limit will be lowered from 30 to 25 miles per hour on a 4.2 mile stretch of Northern Boulevard between 40th Road and 114th Street beginning in May, and to 7.4 miles of Queens Boulevard, between Jackson and Hillside Avenues, starting in July.

In addition to the speed limit, the DOT will change the timing of signals to discourage speeding and will increase police enforcement on the selected streets, officials said.

Elected officials and transit advocates have called for safety improvements on both Queens and Northern Boulevards in the past.

Queens Boulevard long ago earned the unfortunate nickname the "Boulevard of Death" because of the frequency of fatalities on the thoroughfare — 23 since 2008, according to the DOT. There have been five fatalities on the designated section of Northern Boulevard during that time, officials said.

"I am pleased to bring the Arterial Slow Zone program to Northern Boulevard where long crosswalks and high speeds have been an unnecessary reality for too many Queens residents," DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg said in a statement.

The DOT is planning a similar effort for a longer stretch of Northern Boulevard next year, Trottenberg said.

The announcement comes on top of another safety improvement project at the corner of Northern Boulevard and 61st Street in Woodside, where third grader Noshat Nahian was fatally struck by an unlicensed driver in December while on his way to school at nearby P.S. 152.

The DOT is adding two pedestrian islands to that intersection, in addition to changing signal timing to maximize crossing time for pedestrians and adding school crosswalks, which have special markings to alert motorists.

"We have looked into the eyes of Noshat Nahian’s mother, and if you have done that once — looked into the eyes of a mother who has lost her child as a result of a traffic collision — you know that we have to do everything we can," City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer said at Thursday's announcement.

"Reducing the speed of traffic even by five miles an hour can and will save lives," he said.

The city also announced several other streets to get "arterial slow zone" status on Thursday. That includes Rockaway Boulevard between 75th Street and Farmers Boulevard, set to take effect in August, and Jamaica Avenue between the Van Wyck Expressway and 224th Street, set to take effect this month.
http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20140501/long-island-city/city-lower-speed-limit-on-northern-queens-boulevards

Other streets that will see lower speed limits inlcude parts of Broadway above Columbus Circle, Canal Street, Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, East Gun Hill Road and Southern Boulevard in The Bronx, and Forest Avenue on Staten Island.

Plans to add slow zones to parts of Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue and McGuinness Boulevard, and on Grand Concourse in the Bronx, were announced last month.
http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20140501/long-island-city/city-lower-speed-limit-on-northern-queens-boulevard

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