The streets of Jamaica, Queens cater to personal vehicles. For many years, elected officers have justified prioritizing this infrastructure, even in residential areas, by claiming our group depends on vehicles. Conventional residential neighborhoods throughout the town—quiet locations the place you possibly can stroll to the shop, meet neighbors, or study to experience a motorcycle—have been slowly remodeled into corridors that largely facilitate an increasing number of driving. Jamaica residents are instructed we don’t want secure bike lanes, brief crosswalks, quick buses, or tree-shaded sidewalks as a result of that’s not how individuals on this neighborhood get round. However the numbers inform a unique story.
It seems a lot of the drivers in my neighborhood—greater than half!—aren’t residents, or visiting a resident or an area enterprise; they’re simply reducing via on their approach to some other place. The vast majority of vehicles on native streets have, actually, no enterprise within the neighborhood. In actual fact, 60% of residents close to Hillside Avenue depend on public transit, and 83% of them particularly depend on buses. We’re not a neighborhood of drivers. However we’re a neighborhood caught in site visitors, and on harmful inhospitable roads, attributable to people who find themselves simply passing via.
I’ve lived with this transportation actuality my entire life. Rising up in close by Hollis, I steadily commuted by bus to Jamaica to catch the practice for college at Brooklyn Tech—and was commonly late to my firstclass as a consequence of slowness and overcrowding on the Q110. A lot of this congestion stems from Jamaica’s position as a significant transit hub. We’ve got the final stops of the F, E, and J subway traces, the JFK AirTrain, a central bus terminal, and the Jamaica LIRR station. Due to this, many non-local drivers deal with Jamaica as a pass-through and park-and-ride location.
We see comparable conditions in neighborhoods all around the metropolis. New York Metropolis residential streets weren’t constructed to accommodate a lot cut-through site visitors. However once we don’t design our native streets otherwise than our highways, that’s precisely how drivers use streets. So regardless that my neighbors primarily don’t personal or use vehicles, my streets cater to drivers; individuals from a very totally different a part of the town simply making an attempt to get some other place a fraction quicker.
I don’t blame drivers for making an attempt to keep away from site visitors jams. Persons are driving greater than ever earlier than— within the final 20 years driving in NYC has elevated 14%. With all this additional congestion, apps like Waze push individuals to seek out the quickest route, which is commonly a neighborhood avenue. However these slender streets aren’t meant to function like this.
We will reclaim our neighborhoods by lowering this cut-through site visitors via what are generally known as Low Visitors Neighborhood therapies. Different cities do it; simply make just a few strategic adjustments—like altering the path of some residential streets close to the larger boundary roads and utilizing diverters at key intersections—and drivers can’t reduce via on their manner some other place. It’s price noting that close by wealthier neighborhoods like Jamaica Estates already function the curved, winding streets that naturally create Low Visitors Neighborhoods—in distinction to the vast, linear streets that make up the core of Jamaica. In locations that use Low Visitors Neighborhood instruments, there are 50% fewer vehicles on the handled streets however residents nonetheless come and go as they please.
One other simple goal space could be streets by native colleges. On common, the streets close to New York Metropolis’s colleges are extra harmful than the remainder of the town. Arrival and dismissal instances are all the time chaotic, however for areas with excessive cut-through site visitors, numerous that chaos is because of drivers who don’t should be there. There’s a really actual hazard in permitting drivers to hurry via our faculty communities.
What’s particularly fascinating about lowering cut-through site visitors is that it truly reduces site visitors on close by highways and greater roads, too. Whenever you make neighborhoods calmer, extra individuals stroll, bike, and take the bus, and that reduces site visitors inside and outdoors the fast space. So everybody wins—streets are quieter and safer for me and my neighbors and the encompassing, higher-traffic streets are much less congested, making it even simpler to get the place you’re going if you do have to drive.
From an early age I felt the hopelessness of many New Yorkers who stay in areas that prioritize drivers over the wants of locals. However by trying on the knowledge and getting sensible about who’s utilizing our native streets and the way we will make them work extra successfully, it’s clear that a greater future is nicely inside our grasp. Decreasing cut-through site visitors wouldn’t impression residents’ entry to their neighborhood in any manner. Extra quiet, extra connection, extra choices for strolling, biking, or driving the bus. That’s the long run I need for Jamaica and for neighborhoods throughout the town.
Abu Nayeem is a Jamaica resident, transportation advocate, and District 27 Neighborhood Captain.
