The Department of Transportation is keeping up a fast pace in its effort to slow down major corridors, yesterday adding the second 25 mph limit to a Brooklyn street this month.
The new slow zone will cover a 1.1-mile stretch of McGuinness Boulevard in Greenpoint, between the Pulaski Bridge and the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. The DOT this month installed similar slow zones on Atlantic Avenue and Grand Concourse in the Bronx.
DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg said she saw unsafe driving on the heavily trafficked Greenpoint arterial street earlier in the morning.
“I’ve already watched cars traveling at unsafe speeds and moving through red lights here,” she said at a news conference.
The slow zone adds to the changes the DOT made to McGuinness Boulevard, which has countdown clocks at 11 intersections and curb extensions to cut down crossing time.
The boulevard, which is a truck route with a 30 mph limit, was the site of four fatalities between 2008 and 2013, including three pedestrians and a bicyclist.
Michael Palladino, a 23-year-old who works at Evergreen Funeral Home on the corner of McGuinness Boulevard and Nassau Avenue, said he noticed that police officers lately have been posted at the corridor, busting drivers for speeding road.
“There’s people that just fly down this boulevard,” Palladino said. The slow zone, he said, “is definitely needed.”
State lawmakers at the news conference also stressed the need for the city to get more speed cameras, an issue being debated in Albany, which must pass legislation first.
State Sen. Martin Malave Dilan, a top Democrat on the transportation committee, said he expects a speed camera bill to be introduced in the state Senate before lawmakers leave Albany in June.
