The reconfiguration of the intersections of Grand Avenue, Flushing Avenue, Maspeth Avenue and 64th Streets resulted from a traffic safety study conducted around St. Stanislaus Kostka School in 2006. The study found excessive truck and bus traffic on Grand Avenue in front of the school. It also recorded an 85th percentile speed of vehicles of 37 mph on Grand Avenue. The safety improvements we hope to achieve by closing the slip and making one large triangle at this intersection include:
. lmproving conditions for students walking to the school by eliminating one leg of a complicated intersection and shortening the crosswalks.
. Reducing speeds on Grand Avenue near the school
. Discouraging trucks from using Grand Avenue
. Beautifying the community by planting this new triangular median with trees and plants
. Maintaining existing parking

After construction began, I received a number of traffic congestion complaints from residents and from the principal of the school. I visited the site personally on Friday October 24th at 2:30p m and again at 4:30 pm. There was no traffic congestion on Grand Avenue at that time. There was, however, some congestion on Flushing Avenue- traffic may already be adjusting its patterns. One of my staff visited the site from 7:15 to 7:50 am on October 27th and another visited it on October 28th at 8:20 am; neither employee observed any congestion. We will also be adjusting the traffic signal timing in the near future. Please know that we will continue to monitor the site. Construction should be completed by the end of November when traffc should reach a steady state.

These improvements do not reduce this agency's commitment to implementing the Maspeth ByPass. I am pleased to report that we have prepared the task order for our negotiations with the Engineering Service Contractor. Once the negotiations are complete, the contractor will assist us in identifying the engineering requirements to implement the bypass. Although this analysis will take additional time, we have taken the first steps to achieving our commitment to the community. We do not concur that the improvements should be delayed until the bypass is implemented. Safety measures around schools should be implemented in as timely a manner as possible as funding is identified. Incrementally achieving improvements is better than making no improvement at all.