QUEENS — Community Board 9 unanimously rejected the city Transportation Department's plan Tuesday to convert two Kew Gardens streets into one-way roads, and called on the agency to conduct a comprehensive traffic study in the area to stem speeders and rush hour traffic.
The DOT proposed converting Beverly Road, between Brevoort Street and Park Lane South, to a northbound one-way street, and adjacent Grenfell Street, from Onslow Place to 83rd Avenue, to a southbound one-way road.
Sylvia Hack of CB9 said Tuesday that the board feared the proposed changes “would be disruptive to the community and cause potentially hazardous traffic conditions to these blocks.”
The board also asked the DOT to conduct a "comprehensive traffic study of this section of Kew Gardens.”
Murray Burger of the Kew Gardens Civic Association said that while the neighborhood struggles with speeding drivers and congested streets during rush hour, the plan would created even more traffic problems.
"Additional one-way streets, not carefully planned, would tend to create a maze-like complicated pattern," he said Tuesday. He noted that Audley Street and 83rd Avenue, which intersect Beverly Road and Grenfell Street, are also one-way streets.
Burger said that drivers often try to take short cuts from Queens Boulevard and other nearby thoroughfares, including Jackie Robinson Parkway, Metropolitan Avenue and Van Wyck Expressway, and speed through small Kew Gardens streets not meant for heavy traffic.
Burger also said that he would like to see additional traffic lights and stop signs in the area.
Several speed humps have been approved for Beverly Road, but they have not yet been installed.
A spokesman for the DOT said in an e-mail Wednesday that “the agency will review any responses it receives from the board or any requests for additional studies.”
