FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM SEPTEMBER 24, 2020 • THE QUEENS COURIER 3
Two Queens schools closed after second cases of COVID-19 reported
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELLDOMENECH
editorial@qns.com
@QNS
Th e city has temporarily closed two
Queens public high schools on Friday,
Sept. 18, aft er both reported a second case
of the novel coronavirus among staff ers
in a seven-day period, the Department of
Education announced.
Beach Channel Educational Campus in
Far Rockaway and P.S. 90 Horace Mann
in Richmond Hill reported their second
COVID-19 cases on Th ursday, according
to DOE offi cials, launching an investigation
and a 24-hour-long shutdown of
the buildings.
It is unclear when the infected staff ers at
Beach Channel Educational Campus and
P.S. 90 took their COVID-19 tests.
Under DOE guidelines, schools will be
shut down if more than one person not
connected by classroom or student cohort
reports testing positive for the virus within
a seven-day period. So far, four public
schools have had to temporarily close since
buildings reopened for teachers on Sept. 8.
Th e fi rst school to close its doors was
P.S. 811X — the Academy for Career
and Living Skill — a District 75 school
in the Bronx three days aft er buildings
reopened. District 75 schools serve the
city’s most disabled students.
Th ere are now at least 57 public schools
reporting at least one positive COVID-
19 case, according to the DOE. Here
is of school buildings with confi rmed
cases confi rmed by the DOE. Number
one through 21 had a confi rmed case
Photo via Google Maps
with the infected staff er reporting to the
school building. Numbers 22 through 35
are buildings with a confi rmed case but
the COVID-19 staff er had not been inside
the school building.
Lyft’s ‘Resilient Streets’ plan focuses on NW Queens
BY MARK HALLUM
Editorial@qns.com
@QNS
As New Yorkers have displayed a hesitancy
to get back on the subway with
lingering COVID-19 concerns, Lyft has
come up with an engineering plan for
streets that will give cyclists and scooters
space to safely move.
Th e outline set forth in Lyft ’s Resilient
Streets initiative, developed by urban
design fi rmStreet Plansand transportation
engineering fi rmSam Schwartz
Engineering, prioritizes bus and bike
lanes and is dependent on one long shot:
federal funding for local governments.
Despite this, Lyft includes three case
studies one of which focusing on Queens,
anticipating a major surge of vehicular
traffi c despite mass transit not being a
proven vector for the spread of COVID-
19. Other attributes of the resiliency plan
include changesLyft and bikeshare apps to
surface “Slow Streets” or “Open Streets,”
and a push for federal lawmakers to pass
the Bicycle Commuter Act, among other
bills.
“Th e pandemic has created a transportation
infl ection point for our cities: do
we stick to the status quo or do we make
it possible to easily and safely get around
without owning a car?” said Caroline
Samponaro, the head of Micromobility
Policy at Lyft . “Micromobility has proven
itself to be a core part of creating a
resilient transportation system in our cities,
but sustaining the boom will require
a dramatic reimagining of our streets. To
support resilient cities, we need to create
resilient streets.”
Lyft ’s recommendations for New York
City focus on 34th Avenue, Broadway,
and Northern Boulevard in Queens to
off er cyclists links to the Queensborough
Bridge to Manhattan. Th ese areas have
seen an increase in bicycle crowding.
While the MTA struggles to lure riders
back to trains and buses which haven not
recovered since ridership losses surpassed
90 percent, Lyft has seen a steady increase
in bike-share users. In 2020, CitiBike saw
500,000 new users and over 103,000 rides
on Sept. 12 alone. Earlier in September,
city Department of Transportation
Commissioner Polly Trottenberg said
they had logged a 57 percent increase in
cycling since the pandemic began.
Th e MTA’s fi nancial loss came quickly
aft er New York went into lockdown and
received $3.9 billion from the federal government
in the CARES Act. Additional
stimulus bills since then have failed while
state and local governments continue to
grapple decimated coff ers. Th e transit
agency alone says $12 billion will help
them stave off layoff s, a 40 percent cut to
services and a $1 fare increase.
Image courtesy of Lyft
link
link
/WWW.QNS.COM
link
link
