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DOT Installs New Traffic Light, Lower Speed Limit at Busy Sunnyside Corner

 The DOT added a traffic light and pedestrian signals at 51st Street and Skillman Avenue last week.
The DOT added a traffic light and pedestrian signals at 51st Street and Skillman Avenue last week.
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DNAinfo/Jeanmarie Evelly

SUNNYSIDE — The city is making changes to an accident-prone Queens intersection where residents say crossing the street is "a gamble," installing a new traffic light and lowering speed limits nearby.

The Department of Transportation installed a traffic light and pedestrian signals at 51st Street and Skillman Avenue last week, after residents pushed for improvements there, officials said Tuesday.

"Before, you just sort of crossed at your own risk," said Ryan Balas, 29, who lives on the block and said cars heading north on 51st Street would often conflict with those driving west on Skillman Avenue.

"These cars didn’t know whether or not they could go," he said, adding that the problem was exacerbated by delivery trucks that park on the corner and block views. "It seems like every other week there was a car accident."

City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer called the intersection a "real blind spot" and said more than 200 people signed a petition calling for the traffic light.

"There were accidents, and more than accidents there were lots of near-misses — near-misses that could have been fatal," he said.

Between 2009 and 2013, there were eight injuries at the intersection, with one involving a pedestrian, according to the DOT.

The intersection is also part of a Neighborhood Slow Zone, where speed limits are being lowered to 20 miles per hour on certain residential streets. 

The speed change has already rolled out at 51st Street between Skillman and 39th Avenues, where signs and street markings notify drivers of the change.

The slow zone will reach the rest of Sunnyside and parts of Woodside by this summer, according to a rep for Van Bramer's office. 

The DOT is also planning to add speed bumps at some spots within the slow zone, which is roughly bound by Queens Boulevard/Roosevelt Avenue on the south, 43rd Street to the west, 58th Street to the east and 38th Avenue/Barnett Avenue to the north.

Officials started implementing traffic changes in the zone — one of three created in Sunnyside and Woodside — in November