QUEENS — A Queens lawmaker is demanding that the city install a series of speed cameras at a dangerous Rego Park intersection, two blocks away from an elementary school.
State Sen. Jose Peralta (D-Jackson Heights) said there have been a number of accidents at the intersection of Junction Boulevard and the Horace Harding Expressway, endangering children who attend nearby P.S. 206.
According to CrashStat, a project of Transportation Alternatives, which maps crashes that occured between 1995 to 2009, about a dozen pedestrians were injured at the intersection, including one person who was killed.
Earlier this week, Peralta sent a letter to city Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan asking her to install cameras at the intersection.
"As you are well aware, the Horace Harding Expressway's wide lanes are designed to quickly move a high volume of vehicles onto and off of the Long Island Expressway," Peralta wrote. "While that may be ideal for the flow of vehicular traffic, it represents a danger to pedestrians, including local residents, shoppers and, most especially, elementary school children."
Peralta co-sponsored a recently passed bill allowing New York City to launch a five-year pilot program to operate 20 speed camera systems in school speed zones.
The pol sent a similar request to the DOT in March this year, and now, after the bill passed, he sent a second one.
A spokeswoman for the DOT said Wednesday that P.S. 206 is being considered under the speed-camera initiative.
At the beginning of the school year, Peralta and the principal of P.S. 206 also requested the reinstatement of a school crossing guard at the intersection.
But Peralta was told that the 110th and 112th Precincts were not able to assign one to the location, his office said.
The school lost its guard a couple of years ago due to budget cuts, according to Peralta's office.
