On Friday, I visited the intersection of Jewel Avenue and 164th Street in Fresh Meadows, Queens to take a look at the Department of Transportation’s latest controversial "road diet." Despite a Monday morning press conference in which virtually all of the area’s local elected officials and leading Community Board members called for a halt to the City’s pedestrian safety plan, work went ahead as planned. DOT workers were reconfiguring traffic signals, removing stop signs, and putting up new one-way signs. By the time I got there, much of the street had already been re-striped. A more detailed report is on the way…