Monday, April 6, 2015

A Busy Easter for Queens Boulevard

As one reader described it, a "horrendous" accident, smack dab in the middle of the busiest intersection in our neighborhood—71st Ave. and Queens Blvd.—early Easter Sunday morning; and then there was the motorcycle gang that swarmed the Boulevard later that day (it was so loud, even I heard it and I'm quite a distance away). Thanks to Amy for sending in the (narrated) video below:


As far as the accident is concerned, by the time Matthew, who reported it to the Blog, came upon the scene, this is what he saw: "Just traffic police left blocking everything off. And two severely damaged vehicles. Car and SUV. On the car whole driver side is gone. I would imagine very serious injuries. Couldn't get any photos and traffic police were quite busy so couldn't get any more info. Position of the cars doesn't lead to any obvious indications of what happened."

Nice way to start off your Easter Sunday, eh? Tragic and so sad that after all these years our public officials are still unable to improve the safety of what I view as the only remaining Big Negative about living in Forest Hills.

But wait! There is some hope after all, as this AM New York story explains: 
Queens Boulevard, the 'Boulevard of Death,' to make room for bicycles, pedestrians
Transportation officials want the "Boulevard of Death" to finally shed its ghastly name.
A protected bicycle lane and more pedestrian space will be added to a 1.3-mile stretch of Queens Boulevard in August as part of a three-year effort to overhaul street life on the highly trafficked corridor.

3 comments:

  1. It's interesting how I actually noticed how quiet it was on QB as I walked my dog at 8 am on Sunday. Then I read about all this!

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  2. Not sure any redesign of QB would not have prevented this one particular accident. I live right where the accident happened. Tons of accidents happen there and every time I hear an accident, it is always preceded by the sounds of screeching tires from brakes being stepped on hard. This particular accident had no screeching tires. All you heard was the hard impact and continued pushing movement for a few seconds. I knew it was bad from the sound. When I looked down from my apartment, I saw the mangled car. The SUV I couldn't see from my apartment, but I did see it later on when I went downstairs. No idea how it ended up halfway down the block in the Eastbound express lane, when the mangled car was at the intersection of the Westbound express lane. Totally crazy.

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  3. Whenever you have the mix of cars and pedestrians, you will have accidents. There is no way around that. It seems you want there to never be any accidents on QB and while we would all love for that to happen, I know after 41 years of living here that the only way to achieve that would be to shut the whole thing down.

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