Comments on: DOT Shows No Traffic Calming Ingenuity for Astoria’s Deadly 21st Ave

By: AstoriaStory

AstoriaStory — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 14:32:35 +0000

Some readers are confusing 21st Street with 21st Avenue. Perhaps a map can be displayed.

By: Christian Shaffer

Christian Shaffer — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:53:36 +0000

Have you considered radar speed displays?

By: drosejr

drosejr — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:44:22 +0000

Don’t forget, this street is the connection between the Grand Central Parkway and the Queensboro Bridge. There is almost always a traffic jam coming off the GCP westbound to get onto this street since it is the last exit before the Triboro Bridge (can’t say RFK yet). Drivers are always speeding down it to get to the free bridge. Another casualty of bridge toll failure.

By: J

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:10:09 +0000

Ddartley,

The best and most consistently effective way to calm a street is to reduce the number of lanes. If there’s only one lane, drivers are forced to go the speed of the slowest car. Since only a small percent of people drive recklessly, this usually does the trick since there is no longer a possibility of passing.

This has been done successfully all over the city: Vanderbilt Ave in Prospect Heights, Greenwich & Washington streets in the West Village, DeKalb Avenue in Clinton Hill, Carlton Avenue in Fort Greene, Broadway in Midtown, etc. etc. All of these projects also added bike lanes as a bonus.

By: J

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 21:00:50 +0000

This would be a great location for center median, BRT lane, ala Euclid Avenue in Cleveland. The street appears to be way overbuilt, so this would significantly calm traffic by reducing the number of travel lanes to one in each direction, and speed up bus operations on a route that should have received a subway line 80 years ago.

By: ddartley

ddartley — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:55:51 +0000

When I lived in Astoria, if I was driving I would indeed take 21st Street because it was the fastest north-south route.

As for humps, or how exactly the street can be calmed, others here will know more about this than I do, but I have heard that speed humps can cause an increase in emissions, and that other calming measures can do the same job without that negative side effect.

By: Glenn

Glenn — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:04:12 +0000

I used to live on 23rd Road in between 21st Avenue and Astoria Park. It’s wide, there’s not much traffic at all and cars drive really fast. All the key ingredients for a Road Diet!

I would put in a median or bike lanes. It would make a great route to the Queensborough Bridge