With traffic fatalities up, blueprint calls for universal daylighting West pols unveil street safety plan

by Sophie Krichevsky Associate Editor

Western Queens elected officials on Tuesday unveiled their blueprint for improving street safety in the region.

The plan — put together by Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas (D-East Elmhurst), Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani (D-Astoria), state Sen. Kristen Gonzalez (D-Long Island City) and Councilmember Tiffany Cabán (D-Astoria) — outlines the politicians’ infrastructural and legislative recommendations to make Western Queens streets safer for pedestrians, drivers and cyclists alike.

The blueprint focuses on seven tactics to make streets safer, including the addition of universal daylighting, improved bike and pedestrian infrastructure, reimagined traffic enforcement, safe and sustainable micromobility, as well as making public transit more reliable and disincentivizing heavy vehicles.

The elected officials’ vision comes in light of the borough’s 43 percent increase in traffic fatalities between this year and last year. As of Nov. 21, the report on the plan says, 13 people have been killed in Western Queens accidents involving a pedestrian or cyclists; 939 have been injured.

“Too many New Yorkers have lost loved ones because of our inaction on street safety,”

González-Rojas said in a statement. “I’m proud to have collaborated with my fellow Western Queens representatives ... on this comprehensive street safety plan that recommends common-sense, evidence-based policy solutions to the ongoing crisis in our communities.”

Among the policy changes discussed in the 20-page report is to make all city intersections daylit, or to remove parking spaces just before