STATEN ISLAND — Efforts to slow traffic on a stretch of a Sunnyside road are being proposed by the Department of Transportation.
Planned changes would aim to cut speeding and dangerous driving on the residential street of Little Clove Road, between Clove and Windsor roads, the DOT said at this month's Community Board 1 meeting.
Rob Viola, a DOT representative at the meeting, said drivers treat the street like a service road for the nearby Staten Island Expressway.
"It's a bit of a schizophrenic road," he said at the meeting.
"There are houses along there, it's residential, but it's really being used as a service for the Staten Island Expressway. There's some conflict in use there."
The DOT would attempt to calm the traffic by changing the current three lane street between Clove Road and Renwick Avenue into a one lane street with parking, Viola said.
The plan would hopefully calm some cars weaving in and out of lanes and keep their speeds down to the local 30 mph, Viola said.
The two lane portion of Little Clove Road from Renwick Avenue to Windsor Road would also have stripes painted on the street to easily separate the street parking from the road, Viola said.
Viola said the DOT looked at the street after local politicians and community members voiced safety worries.
"There's concern about speeding on this segment," he said. "This qualifies as what we call at the DOT a high crash corridor."
The street has nearly seven crash injuries a year, and over 80% of drivers the DOT saw during their study of the road were speeding, Viola said.
While some members at the meeting were in favor of the traffic changes, others were worried that it would add to the existing congestion on the road from Renwick Avenue to Clove Road.
"By reducing it to one lane you're just going to back up the whole road," said board member Sunny Jain, who has lived in the area for 20 years.
"The whole traffic would be backed up to Clove Road. It's a heavily congested area."
While Viola said the DOT did not witness congestion when it preformed its study, the department was open to making another visit and modifying the plan accordingly.
The DOT plans to implement the changes to Little Clove Road this month.
