Flushing

Update: The Daily News identified the Queens hit-and-run victim as Agalia Gounaris, 84, of Flushing. Police said the bus was located in Connecticut, en route to a casino, and that by that time evidence was lost due to rain. The driver was being questioned, the News reported.

Just after 1 a.m. Sunday, the driver of a black SUV struck and killed Mariano Contreras, 41, on College Point Boulevard in Flushing. The driver fled the scene and has not yet been located.

DOT and the MTA have released the plan for Select Bus Service on the Q44 linking Jamaica, Flushing, and the Bronx, which serves 44,000 passengers daily. The areas that need bus lanes most -- downtown Jamaica and Flushing -- are in line to get them, but not the rest of the route.

Council Member Rory Lancman and Assembly Member Michael Simanowitz have taken up the cause of opposing bus lanes for Select Bus Service in their eastern Queens districts. While the pair has gotten a lot of attention, they are outnumbered by almost a dozen city, state, and federal elected officials along the route urging the city to be bolder with its bus service upgrades.

Tonight, DOT and the MTA will hold an open house to solicit input for proposed Select Bus Service routes linking Flushing and Jamaica. The plan to reduce travel times for tens of thousands of Queens bus riders has broad support from advocates and local electeds, including Assembly Member Nily Rozic. But the Times Ledger reports that Assembly Member Michael Simanowitz and City Council Member Rory Lancman, who purport to be in favor of the project, oppose dedicating new street space to buses.

A motorist killed a cyclist near Citi Field Tuesday afternoon. The driver was ticketed for speeding, but true to form, anonymous police sources and the media blamed the victim for his own death.

Last month, three year-old Allison Liao was crossing Main Street in Flushing with her grandmother when an SUV driver turned left, hitting and killing the toddler while she had the walk signal in the crosswalk. Yesterday in Jackson Heights, Liao's parents marched with the families and friends of other traffic violence victims, and made this powerful plea for a safer driving culture.

Clarence took these shots of new pedestrian islands going in on College Point Boulevard in Flushing. "I counted seven or eight between between 33rd and Maple Avenues," he says.

A man killed in Queens over the weekend was at least the fourth pedestrian in 2012 to die in Peter Koo's City Council district, and at least the fourth pedestrian fatality in the 109th Precinct this year. All four crashes were hit-and-runs.