LONG ISLAND CITY — Mayor Bill de Blasio is allocating $17 million for a redesign of Thomson Avenue near LaGuardia Community College — following years of calls for traffic changes near the school, where a 16-year-old student was killed in 2013.
The mayor said he's setting aside capital funds for the safety upgrades under his Vision Zero initiative, with plans to overhaul the avenue between Skillman Avenue and Van Dam Street, according to the Department of Transportation.
There were 24 people injured in crashes within that approximately four-block span during 2016, according to the city's Vision Zero map.
"We know there's a real problem around LaGuardia College," de Blasio said during a town hall meeting in Long Island City last week. "We know that more has to be done."
School officials have been pushing for street changes near LaGuardia since at least 2013, when a minivan jumped the curb on Thomson Avenue near 30th Street, striking several pedestrians and killing Tenzin Drudak, who attended a high school located on the college campus.
DOT made some initial upgrades in the months after the tragedy, including closing a troublesome right-turn ramp and adding countdowns at pedestrian crosswalks near the school. LaGuardia Community College commissioned its own traffic study in 2014 that recommended more changes for the area.
The DOT says the $17 million will be used to enact some of the upgrades it announced last year for Thomson Avenue, which include widening the sidewalk on the south side of the street adjacent to the LaGuardia campus, while narrowing the sidewalk on the north side.
The proposed work needed capital funding in order to move forward because it will require changes to the street's drainage and utilities, according to a DOT spokeswoman.
The agency plans to reassess that 2016 proposal and present an updated plan to the community by the end of the year, the spokeswoman said.
