Mayor Giuliani announced today the latest round of measures to improve safety along Queens Boulevard. While some of the measures are a start towards improved safety, on the whole the plan continues the City's policy of blaming pedestrians on Queens Boulevard, and ignores fundamental safety problems. Among these problems are grossly inadequate crossing times, limited roadway crossings that can be a mile apart, narrow medians, and signal progressions that encourage speeding. Until the City fixes these fundamental problems, New Yorkers will continue to die on Queens Boulevard, police crackdown or not.

Safety experts at Transportation Alternatives called on the DOT to:

• Increase the number of pedestrian crosswalks by three-fold or four-fold so that they are no more than 200 feet apart.
• Increase pedestrian crossing time so that walkers can cross Queens Boulevard from curb to curb at all hours.
• Widen medians to 12 to 14 feet along the entire boulevard.
• Time the traffic lights on Queens Boulevard at 30 mph or below. Currently, even though the speed limit is 30 mph, the signal progression is timed at 38 mph during rush hours.
• Install temporary curb extensions with steel bollards at every intersection.

John Kaehny, executive director of Transportation Alternatives stated:

"Queens Boulevard is inherently unsafe. It is far too wide, the curbs and intersections are designed for cars, not people. The City's approach is backwards and offensive. It puts traffic before the lives of pedestrians.

The police cannot handle this monstrosity. It should be scrapped and replaced by a pedestrian and neighborhood-friendly boulevard, not a highway. Enough blaming pedestrians."