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| Re: Air Train Proposed To Connect (7) Line With LaGuardia Airport; video (1334811) | |||
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Re: Air Train Proposed To Connect (7) Line With LaGuardia Airport; video |
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Posted by Stephen Bauman on Wed Jan 21 09:15:23 2015, in response to Re: Air Train Proposed To Connect (7) Line With LaGuardia Airport; video, posted by The Silence on Tue Jan 20 23:51:52 2015. I don't think you know Willets Point the way I know Willets Point...Now, Roosevelt, for most of it's length between Main street and 114th streetThe first problem is crossing Main St from points east. The bus routes have been designed to avoid crossing Main St. as much as possible. It's still a nightmare with its current vehicle traffic. Requiring almost all buses to cross Main St at Roosevelt will make it much worse. N.B. most of the pedestrian traffic is local and will not go away by routing the buses to Willets Point. The second problem is the College Point Blvd intersection. There's now a shopping mall on the southwest corner. Pedestrian traffic reaches it by crossing this intersection. This has reduced the number of vehicles that can cross or turn at this intersection from any direction. It's bad for cars traveling eastbound. The roadway is two lanes wide and cannot be widened. The right lane is backed up because cars cannot turn onto College Pt Blv because of pedestrians crossing College Pt Blvd entering and exiting the shopping mall. The third problem is parking garage entrance/exit for this shopping mall. It's located just west of the elevated portal. They have added a traffic light there. This has reduced the westbound roadway to a single through lane. The left lane is a holding lane for cars making a left turn and waiting for the traffic light to change. Through traffic for the remaining single lane has been reduced because traffic light must allow cars exiting the garage to turn left (westbound) onto Roosevelt. The result is that westbound through capacity has been reduced to 25% of what it was previously (50% for taking away the left lane and 50% for the traffic light). Through eastbound traffic is hardly better. It's also got to wait for the traffic light for cars entering/leaving the garage. After it gets past there, there's the abovementioned backup from cars trying to turn right (south) onto College Pt Blvd. Your Jamaica experience is not analogous. The Jamaica shopping district is spread out over from Sutphin Blvd to 170th St (the old Mays store), a distance of 1 mile. The magnet stores: Montgomery-Ward, Gertz, Macy's and Mays were dispersed. The traffic they generated was also dispersed. The shopping mall in Flushing is different. All the traffic from Targets, Old Navy, Marshals, Best Buy, BJ's etc., is concentrated at a single corner. This mall may be a collection of losers but collectively they overwhelm Rosevelt Ave. The fourth problem is on the horizon at 126th St/Willets Pt Blv. This is the new shopping center and housing development to replace the auto junk yards. Its backers expect this development to generate more traffic than Citifield and the tennis stadium combined. I have lived in this area for more than 50 years. Navigating by car over the Roosevelt Ave Bridge isn't the clear shot it once was. You can get some idea of what it might be like by taking the shuttle bus, when the Flushing line is closed between Willets Point and Main St. The next scheduled service interruption is May 22nd. |
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