Queens Department of Transportation Commissioner Maura McCarthy, addressing the May meeting of Community Board 2, said proposed reconfiguring of traffic on 44th Drive would be a matter of “traffic calming”, adding that making it so vehicles may safely roll is especially necessary on the 60-foot-wide thoroughfare running in both directions between Thomson Avenue and the East River. McCarthy called it a “highcrash corridor” that ranks in the 92nd percentile of hazardous streets in Queens. She displayed charts and statistics from her computer to confirm the description. The plan for improvement would be to take a lane away from each direction and provide turn lanes into 23rd, 21st and 11th Streets and Vernon Boulevard. This would make traffic proceed in one lane in either direction. The parking lanes beside the curbs would remain, but between them and the motor vehicle lanes, bicycle lanes would be installed, bracketed by white lines. McCarthy said that narrowing the accessibility of vehicle lanes in that way has led to reductions in mishaps on other streets in the borough. A board member observed that there is heavy truck traffic on 44th Drive, which brings up the problem of double-parking during deliveries to buildings or stores. McCarthy said that delivery zones could be established by taking away parking spaces and CB 2 Chairman Joseph Conley added that stores have the power to request such zones. Al Volpe of the board said that instead, double parking could be allowed, with trucks permitted to park in the bicycle lane, leaving cyclists to find their way around them; even thus impeded, he reasoned, bicyclists would largely have lanes of their own on 44th Drive, not the case at present.

Previously, the board’s transportation committee had given its approval to the plan. Conley said he was “amazed at the number of traffic accidents” on 44th Drive. But he also noted that there remained a belief that the street runs through a heavily industrial area, a belief that is superannuated now that stores, bars, restaurants and apartment towers stand on 44th Drive where factories, warehouses and loading docks were once located but now have either been replaced or stand empty. Knowing that McCarthy had to leave, Conley called for a show of hands rather than going through a roll call vote. The vote was heavily favorable, with only four board members indicating disapproval of the plan.

A proposal for a delayed left turn signal at 58th Street in Woodside to allow safer entrance eastbound on Roosevelt Avenue was recently rejected by the DOT. Conley said that this proposal, promoted chiefly by Woodside activist Jim Condes, has such merit that it should be adopted eventually. Its proponents shouldn’t be discouraged by the current setback, but must keep promoting it.

Speaking for the vacationing Lisa Ann Deller, Patrick O’Brien of the Board 2 land use committee said that renaming of streets should be driven by the right criteria, and by intellect before emotions. Conley noted that criteria conflicts arise because wars, or a signal disaster such as the 9/11 attack, produce individuals for whom streets should be renamed before persons who have served their local areas for long periods of time. O’Brien indicated a preference for lengthy residence and involvement in the community as the main criteria for these “significant honors”.

When O’Brien resumed his place as chairman of the city services committee, he had no honors or favor to bestow on the persistent proprietors of the “exotic” club on 21st Street near a Queensboro Bridge exit who have lately applied for a liquor license. A special hearing on the matter appears likely.

With the help of several truckloads of sand, a few years ago Water Taxi Beach was established in a section of waterfront on the East River at the southern end of Hunters Point. Water Taxi Beach was supposed to be family oriented, but the cabana and its alcoholic beverages and those who consumed them, became its leading image. The area encompassing it was seized for use in building the Hunters Point South apartments, so Water Taxi Beach apparently went out of existence. Two former employees came to the meeting to say that the place got a bad rap and should be revived. It provided work, both said, one of them testifying that he needed a job desperately when he was hired in 2005 as a waiter, going from there to become the Water Taxi Beach manager. Both speakers said there was room in the vicinity to reconstruct another such place, and noted that more than 1,000 people recently signed a petition asking for Water Taxi Beach to be reopened. Conley responded that Water Taxi Beach had been given several chances over several years to reform its reputation for raucous weekend revelry but was never able to achieve that result. Sand and alcohol just didn’t mix, he concluded.

Francisco Muñoz, owner of Paisa Car Service, complained to the meeting that it had taken him two years to establish his credentials and open for business, but recently a company from Brooklyn moved into Woodside and set itself up in two weeks. What is going on? he wondered. Conley wondered too, and he and Muñoz agreed that there were too many car service automobiles in Sunnyside and Woodside. Conley showed photographs of several car service vehicles that park all day at the curb on Queens Boulevard near Sidetracks restaurant. That led him to complain about trash dumping under the train viaduct just across the roadway. Black bags full of trash have been deposited in corners of the parking lots under the viaduct and Conley has demanded that the Department of Sanitation investigate the origin of the dumping.