SUNNYSIDE — Parents and local leaders are pushing to get a traffic light installed at a busy Queens intersection near a new elementary school, where one parent compared crossing the street to the game "Frogger."
The group is pushing to get the light put up on 47th Avenue at 42nd Street, where they say getting across the two-way avenue is a hazardous trek for children at nearby P.S. 343 as well as those going to play at Thomas P. Noonan Playground across the street.
"It's like playing Frogger, but in real life," said Mike Wallace, whose daughter Virginia is in first grade at P.S. 343, which opened on 42nd Street last year.
"47th Avenue is a thoroughfare," he said, adding that cars on the roadway tend to speed up at the intersection as they race to beat the traffic light on 43rd Street a block away. "It's busy, and it's fast, and it doesn't have any speed bumps."
Wallace's daughter and other first graders from her school joined City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer at the corner on Monday, where the group marched to a nearby mailbox to mail letters that the children wrote to the Department of Transportation as part of a civics assignment.
"I need to cross this intersection myself everyday to get to work," P.S. 343 Principal Brooke Barr said. "This is a dangerous intersection. It's very difficult to cross."
Van Bramer's office said there have been six accidents at the corner since the start of 2014. The councilman said he's been asking the DOT to add a traffic light there since before the new school opened, but were previously told by the agency that one wasn't needed.
The DOT recently agreed to study the intersection again at his request, Van Bramer said.
"We want to make sure that every single one of these children are safe, every single day," the lawmaker said.
A spokeswoman for the DOT confirmed that the agency is researching the area around P.S. 343 for potential safety enhancements. She also pointed out that the school is located in one of the city's new Slow Zones, where the speed limit is being lowered from 30 to 20 miles per hour.
