16 JUNE 7, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Qns. Blvd.
getting more
bike lanes
BY RYAN KELLEY
RKELLEY@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
TWITTER @R_KELLEY6
The fi nal stage of safety improvements
along Queens
Boulevard in Forest Hills
is set to begin in July, and the
Department of Transportation
(DOT) is likely to move forward
with the project even if Community
Board 6 votes against it.
At a Board 6 Transportation
Committee meeting on May 23,
Streetblog.com fi rst reported, a
DOT representative presented the
details of the fourth and fi nal segment
of Queens Boulevard — from
Yellowstone Boulevard to Union
Turnpike — that will receive bike
lanes and pedestrian space on the
corridor’s service roads. As one
of the most signifi cant projects in
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Vision Zero
initiative, the project has moved
forward in the past without community
board approval.
On a call with the Ridgewood
Times on June 4, Board 6 District
Manager Frank Gulluscio confi
rmed that the DOT made it clear
the project will be completed no
matter what, and the board may
not even vote on it.
“The committee will report that
they were given this information,
and if someone from the board
wants to call for a vote they most
certainly can,” Gulluscio said.
“But the bottom line is DOT and
the administration are on a mission
to complete this.”
The mile-long strip of Queens
Boulevard in Forest Hills will receive
the same treatment that Rego
Park, Elmhurst and Woodside saw
before it. Protected bike lanes and
pedestrian space separated from
the road by plastic bollards will be
implemented along the median of
the service roads; curb extensions
will be painted; and stop-controlled
slip lanes will control mergers from
the boulevard to the service roads.
According to the DOT’s presentation
to the Board 6 Transportation
Committee, a survey conducted
by the agency revealed that 65
percent of respondents think
the project should be continued
in Forest Hills. In addition, the
presentation shows that cycling
volumes in Rego Park along
Queens Boulevard increased by
127 percent aft er the protected
bike lanes were installed.
Councilmen call for new school sites
BY RYAN KELLEY
RKELLEY@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
TWITTER @R_KELLEY6
The City Council members who
represent Queens’ most overcrowded
school district have
issued an offi cial call to action for the
community to help them locate properties
to build new schools.
Councilmen Robert Holden and
Francisco Moya released a joint statement
on May 30 asking the public
to submit possible locations where
schools could be built or moved into
existing structures within School
District 24, which includes Elmhurst,
Maspeth, Middle Village, Corona,
Glendale and Ridgewood. The statement
cites a Council report from
March that identifi ed District 24 as
the most overcrowded district in the
borough, and the second most overcrowded
district in the entire city.
“We’re calling on anyone with
recommendations or knowledge of
properties suitable for a school to
report them to our offi ces,” Holden
said. “To alleviate our overcrowded
schools, we need to be creative in
fi nding locations.”
The Council report shows that District
24 has a total of 4,702 seats that
are “unfunded,” which is essentially
the number of students that the district
seats beyond its capacity. With a
total of 9,403 students in the district,
that means the district doesn’t have
room for 50 percent of its students.
The study also points out that more
than 2,000 of those unfunded seats are
in the Corona area, which Moya covers
in Council District 21.
“The numbers are clear and the situation
is dire: Our schools are wildly
Councilman Holden addressed the overcrowding in School District 24 at
his ‘Conversations with your Councilman’ meeting on May 2.
overcrowded,” Moya said. “Every day
the city fails to mitigate this problem is
another day we fail our children.”
When Holden mentioned the report
at his ‘Conversations with your Councilman‘
meeting at his Middle Village
offi ce in May, he said that sections
of Ridgewood are actually losing
students, further tilting the need for
greater capacity in the northern part
of the district.
In response, a member of the audience
pointed out that with a number
of Catholic schools closing in the area,
the Department of Education should
rent that space from the Diocese of
Brooklyn to operate a public school.
“It can’t be done immediately because
there are some people that are
mourning actually losing their parochial
school, so the city doesn’t like to
Photo by Ryan Kelley/QNS
walk right in and put a public school,”
Holden responded. “That’s what I
suggested actually … they’re willing
to do that, but usually there’s a delay
of a year or two, or more.”
Holden said that he has spoken
to School Construction Authority
President Lorraine Grillo who said
the agency is prepared to build more
schools if appropriate locations are
identifi ed.
The Council report also shows that
there are six proposed school additions
in the next four years that could
potentially increase the capacity in
District 24 by more than 3,500 seats.
Anyone with information about
potential sites for schools is asked to
call Holden’s offi ce at 718-366-3900, call
Moya’s offi ce at 718-651-1917, or send an
email to District30@council.nyc.gov.
Ridgewood
teen helps H.S.
team win Stock
Market game
Philip Gawronski of Ridgewood,
along with fellow students
Akhi Khalhar and Sumer Sen
at Brooklyn Technical High School,
competed in the Spring Session of
the Stock Market game, which was
comprised of 1,300 teams across New
York State. The team took home fi rst
place and received honors during
the SIFMA Foundation Conference
Center in Lower Manhattan. Each
team was provided with $100,000 of
fake money to invest, and the team
with the highest returns at the end
of the game wins.
Photo courtesy of Adam Gawronski
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