Queens Boulevard Redesign Work To Resume This Summer

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — Work on the last stretch of Queens Boulevard safety improvements will resume this summer, two years after the project suddenly stalled.

Construction will start over the summer for a long-planned redesign of the 1.2-mile stretch of Queens Boulevard from Yellowstone Boulevard to Union Turnpike in Forest Hills, a Department of Transportation spokesperson said Wednesday.

The street safety project was originally slated to wrap up in 2018. Then, that summer, it hit a roadblock after the local community board voted down the plan in a toothless but symbolic show of opposition against the plan to replace more than 200 parking spots with bike lanes.

Since then, City Hall and Department of Transportation officials had refused to release information on the construction timeline and reasons for the delay.

The mysterious inaction spurred a series of protests by street safety activists, including members of the nonprofit Transportation Alternatives, which has long lobbied the city to add protected bike lanes, adjust crosswalk timers and build wider medians along the major thoroughfare.

The Forest Hills redesign is the last step in the Department of Transportation's four-phase effort to increase safety along the notorious "Boulevard of Death," where nearly 200 people have been killed within the last two decades.

City transportation officials launched the redesign project in 2015 as part of Mayor Bill de Blasio's Vision Zero campaign. The plans called for overhauling a seven-mile stretch of Queens Boulevard over the next three years by installing crosswalks, slip lanes and other safety measures.

After the agency had completed three-fourths of the plan, redesigning the portion from Roosevelt Avenue to Yellowstone Boulevard, it came to a halt.

The last event listed on the Department of Transportation's project page is the Queens Community Board 6 meeting on June 13, 2018, when board members rejected it.