City To Lower Woodhaven Boulevard Speed Limit By 5 MPH: Mayor

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Monday that he is lowering the speed limit on 45 miles of city streets, including Woodhaven Boulevard from Queens to Rockaway boulevards, as a part of his Vision Zero program to improve street safety.

The Mayor's announcement — which will reduce the speed limit on the entirety of Woodhaven Boulevard from 30 MPH to 25 MPH — is the first move to improve pedestrian and bike safety during this week's street-safety-themed week, dubbed "Streets Week!"

"This is about safety, this is about saving lives," Mayor de Blasio said, noting that he is specifically lowering speed limits in areas with many instances of reckless driving, of which Woodhaven Boulevard is no exception.

There have been more than 30 fatal crashes on the boulevard between 2009 and 2020, half of which have been on the stretch of Woodhaven Boulevard that borders Rego Park and Forest Hills form Queens Boulevard to Union Turnpike, according to the city's Vision Zero data.

Since the speed limit decrease of 5 MPH will go into effect immediately, the Mayor announced that the NYPD will be conducting a "traffic safety blitz" throughout the city this week, targeting drivers who speed and fail to yield to pedestrians and bicyclists.

The Mayor's office has said in the past that lowering the speed limit is proven to decrease crashes and fatalities, noting that a pedestrian who is struck by a vehicle traveling at 30 miles per hour is twice as likely to be killed as a pedestrian struck by a vehicle traveling at 25.

Mayor de Blasio is also using Street Week! as a platform to call on legislators in Albany to pass the Crash Victims Rights and Safety Act, which would give New York City control over all local speed limit changes, in addition to other street safety measures.

And while street safety advocates agree that "slower speeds save lives" — as Danny Harris, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, told Streetsblog — many argue that reducing the speed limit is only one element of overall street safety.

"Lowering speeds … will be even more effective when coupled with physical redesigns of streets," Harris told the outlet, pointing to life saving infrastructure, like protected bike lanes and streets that are closed to cars, which the de Blasio administration has been slower to implement.

Woodhaven Boulevard is one of several areas in Queens where the Mayor announced that the speed limit will decrease by as much as 10 MPH. Here's the full list of speed limit decreases in the borough:

• Woodhaven Boulevard from Queens to Rockaway boulevards, from 30 to 25 MPH
• Cross Bay Boulevard from Rockaway Boulevard to the Cross Bay North Boulevard Bridge, from 30 or 40 to 25 or 35.
• Van Wyck Service Road E/W from 135th Avenue to Queens Boulevard, from 30 to 25 MPH
• Astoria Boulevard from Eighth to 111th streets, from 30 to 25 MPH
• South and North Conduit avenues from Sutter Avenue to Sunrise Highway, from 35 to 30 MPH