Jackson Heights Life

On Friday morning, we woke up to the awful news of yet another pedestrian fatality in our neighborhood. This time, a pedestrian trying to cross Roosevelt Avenue was hit by a driver making a left turn from 65th Street onto Roosevelt Avenue. My condolences go out to Ms. Norzom and her family.

When the Assembly legislative session begins in January, one of my top priorities will be passing my bill, A.5242, which would prohibit traffic control signals from displaying a green light for traffic while a pedestrian-control signal indicates walk for the pedestrian. In the meantime, please sign my petition for safer streets here: https://nyassembly.gov/mem/Michael-G-DenDekker/story/89364.

So I'm very familiar with this intersection as I cross it at least twice weekly. Easy for DOT to make changes to the traffic flow there as they've done with other dangerous and confusing intersections throughout our neighborhood. Unfortunately, Councilman DenDekker is using this unfortunate accident to jump on the anti-car bandwagon in this city, so that eventually owning a car in NYC will be untenable.

Will he also demand the MTA make all the #7 stations recently announced to receive long-awaited renovations ADA accessible? What about efforts to make pedestrians and bicyclists obey the traffic laws that they are supposed to follow along with the cars they share the streets with?

I'm not blaming the victim here, I merely want to point out that local politicians have a definite anti-car bias and refuse to acknowledge that many New Yorkers rely on their cars for work, to transport elderly and/or disabled family members to and from appointments, and that the MTA and Access-a-Ride are NOT viable alternatives.

Assemblyman DenDekker,

I'm puzzled by this proposal.  Is there any other city in the world that has adopted this practice on a system-wide basis?  Do you have any evidence that it is feasible?  Is anybody else supporting this proposal, or is this just your personal stunt?

The mayor's office, experts in New York State law, and transportation safety advocacy groups say that New York State lags other states in the tools available to get reckless and aggressive drivers off the streets.  Manhattan DA Cy Vance and other leaders recently proposed legislation to strengthen the state's laws in this regard (https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2019/10/30/pols-offer-new-law-to-hold-reckless-drivers-accountable/) and similar legislation is being promoted by Assemblymember Dan Quart (https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2019/10/07/manhattan-pol-wants-to-change-state-law-to-hold-reckless-drivers-accountable/).  Will you step up and support these important reforms?