Jackson Heights Life

 Is 34th Ave technically open to traffic? Yes but for 12hrs a day, basically the working hours of the day, there are issues with using the street if you have limited mobility, need your vehicle for work, have to use a transit service for medical pickup and assorted other things. No one is filming this though. But the residents experience it first hand. There are many stories that are not the popular narrative of how the open street is impacting JH that are of concern here in quality of life. When will they be told?
 That sign in the march "Stop Yelling at My Grandma" comes to mind as a young man explained his grandmother was being screamed at when she needed to be picked up in front of her building on 34th Ave. But hey, it's open to traffic, right? And the hospital staffer coming home from an overnight shift and is so tired of moving the heavy barriers to her garage on 34th and also being yelled at. Is that what we like about Open Streets? Let hear all sides of the story please and get that data collection and analysis publicized. What's to fear?

Is 34th Ave technically open to traffic? Yes but for 12hrs a day, basically the working hours of the day, there are issues with using the street if you have limited mobility, need your vehicle for work, have to use a transit service for medical pickup and assorted other things. No one is filming this though. But the residents experience it first hand. There are many stories that are not the popular narrative of how the open street is impacting JH that are of concern here in quality of life. When will they be told?
 That sign in the march "Stop Yelling at My Grandma" comes to mind as a young man explained his grandmother was being screamed at when she needed to be picked up in front of her building on 34th Ave. But hey, it's open to traffic, right? And the hospital staffer coming home from an overnight shift and is so tired of moving the heavy barriers to her garage on 34th and also being yelled at. Is that what we like about Open Streets? Let hear all sides of the story please and get that data collection and analysis publicized. What's to fear?

People in New York scream at one another whether on Open Streets or at Grandma's crossing regular roads...welcome to New York. The  city of impatient people. Once, in Jackson Heights, on a crossing, I was walking behind a grandma who was knocked over by an impatient driver who then sped off. This proves nothing. Except that some folks in this city are very impatient.

Interesting use of an individual anecdotal story meant to tug on heart strings by invoking Grandmas.

Ha, ha. Great joke. I had a neighbor who was a very active 80-something woman who was run down by a car while crossing with the light and was never able to walk again. Any penalty for the driver? None. No it's not "welcome to NY", unless you've got a heart with no strings to tug.

Besides Grandmas, I was also once run into at a crossing in Jackson Heights. The walk light said go. Thankfully, I wasn't knocked to the ground. The truth is, being run into by cars at crossings is part of living with the impatient drivers of cars in New York. 

Simply a hard but honest fact. For any pedestrian in New York. Whether they have a heart or not.
Surely, you have seen the instances of impatient car drivers closely cutting in front of pedestrians as they cross?
I am sorry to have to say...welcome to New York. Because that's part of living in New York. I certainly did not say it was a good part.

What we've got now IS a compromise.  Any rational evaluation of the best and highest land use value would say that using this public land to provide free on-street parking makes zero sense.  If we were to do it properly, the entire stretch would be a tree lined park with bike and walking trails, plus narrow lanes necessary for resident and emergency access.  Instead we've currently got a compromise, but that doesn't seem to be enough for a small minority of privileged car owners.

"Free parking" isn't free.  Street construction and repairs are funded by gasoline taxes and registration fees and tolls and sales taxes on car sales.

The Open Street program, on the other hand, has been free, despite restricting the cars that pay for the street.  Enjoy.
As for car owners being privileged, I recommend you watch "Driving While Black" on PBS, if you get a chance.  While not necessary in JH, other than now when Subways are infested, automobiles level the mobility playing field between the classes.  A jalopy can go almost anywhere a Rolls can.

Yesterday, I crossed 34th avenue on 79th street with my bike, in "pedestrian mode", giving a wide berth to an elderly couple as they strolled on 34th. There was no other traffic and 34th was not busy. The lady couldn't help but inform me in a soft-tone, "We have a green light sir."

There's nothing I love more than completely ignoring comments like. No acknowledgement whatsoever. Amazing that these people have been straight up GIVEN the entire street for 30 blocks and not even a 1.5 years later, it's like it's been theirs forever. Now THAT's entitlement.

you do realize that you can't go through a red light under any circumstances, right?

Yesterday, I crossed 34th avenue on 79th street with my bike, in "pedestrian mode", giving a wide berth to an elderly couple as they strolled on 34th. There was no other traffic and 34th was not busy. The lady couldn't help but inform me in a soft-tone, "We have a green light sir."

There's nothing I love more than completely ignoring comments like. No acknowledgement whatsoever. Amazing that these people have been straight up GIVEN the entire street for 30 blocks and not even a 1.5 years later, it's like it's been theirs forever. Now THAT's entitlement.

By "rolled" do you mean ridden or walked?

Look - I'm pro bike. I think there should be protected bike lanes everywhere where there is a road. But intersections are where cyclists by their recklessness do damage to the reputation of other cyclists.

If the light is red, Walk the bike across like the pedestrians that are legally allowed to use the crossing. If you're riding it, you're riding through a red light and breaking the law. If you ride, pedestrians have no way to know what speed or route you're intending to hit with your vehicle - especially true these days w/electric bikes. 

It's ironic that the same people who seem to think that cyclists and pedestrians somehow cannot navigate each other safely on a wide open street are clamoring for the return of cars and trucks to 34th Ave.
And yes, the whole neighborhood is full of traffic when school lets out, as well as during evening rush hour when thousands of cars use our neighborhood as a through route to points east. The return of vehicle traffic to 34th Ave will not change that, it will just be yet another congested street.
I think the city should suspend the program for a week or two and let people see that there will still be heavy traffic and honking throughout the neighborhood without the open street. Of course people will not realize that, because they only see what they want to see.
We live in a city plagued with reckless drivers who cause thousands of serious injuries and couple of hundred fatalities each year in this city, yet a bicycle passing a pedestrian with a few feet to spare is supposedly the danger because "it's against the law".
Common sense is truly dead.