Eyes on the Street: DIY School Zone Traffic-Calming in Corona

Today Transportation Alternatives staff and members of Families for Safe Streets are in Albany, asking legislators to allow NYC to install speed enforcement cameras near every school in the city. This example of a crossing guard’s efforts to defend school kids in Queens, courtesy of Streetfilms’ Clarence Eckerson Jr., is another good illustration of why the state should lift arbitrary enforcement restrictions.

Last week Clarence and son Clarence Eckerson III came upon a DIY neckdown at 104th Street and 41st Avenue, outside P.S. 16 in Corona. Says Clarence:

The crossing guard [pictured] had set up four cones to slow traffic — essentially setting up a temporary gateway treatment on this street! Two cones on either side, narrowing the crossing distance for young people and all other pedestrians.

Before they got the cones, provided by the Parks Department, crossing guards at the school used trash cans to slow turning drivers. Four cones are needed, she said, due to “the speeds some cars go around here.” The 104th Precinct, where P.S. 16 is located, ticketed 702 speeding drivers in all of 2015.

Says Clarence: “The gentleman next to her, who was picking up a child, said, ‘All the streets around here should be 20 miles per hour — maybe even 15 miles per hour — because people will do 40 anyway.’ Another woman I was crossing with said she wished there were ‘orange cones on every corner in the city.’”

TA and Families for Safe Streets have posted a form that makes it easy to tell your state rep that every NYC school kid deserves to be protected from reckless drivers.