Jackson Heights

As a matter of practice, car dealerships along Northern Boulevard, one of the most dangerous streets in Queens, illegally use its sidewalks and curb lanes as a showroom for vehicles. NYPD doesn't enforce against the appropriation of sidewalks and won't answer questions about it.

In preparation for Valentine's Day, the Neighborhood Plaza Partnership set up a camera in Jackson Heights' Diversity Plaza to learn how to say "I love you" in some of the 138 languages spoken in Queens.

In June, Queens Community Board 3 overwhelmingly supported two traffic safety projects: a neighborhood Slow Zone for part of Jackson Heights and new pedestrian islands on Northern Boulevard. Now those improvements plus multiple Safe Routes to School projects are being installed. Clarence Eckerson Jr. snapped some photos earlier this week as DOT crews poured concrete and installed new signs and speed humps.

On Saturday, Make Queens Safer kicked off the school year with a safe streets fair at Travers Park in Jackson Heights, next to the 78th Street play street. DOT distributed 723 bike helmets, more than half of them to children, and 70 kids swapped out their old bikes for right-sized models provided by Recycle-A-Bicycle. Hundreds of kids also participated in learn-to-ride classes from Bike New York and had their bicycles repaired by the Bike Yard.

A simple fix from DOT has made it easier and safer for pedestrians to walk between Woodside and Jackson Heights.

Just after 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, 5-year-old Chunli Mendoza was walking to P.S. 228 with her mother. They were midway across Northern Boulevard at 92nd Street, just a block away from the school, when they were struck by an off-duty NYPD officer. Chunli was seriously injured and remains at Elmhurst Hospital after undergoing surgery on her leg. Her mother, hospitalized for a foot fracture, was released on Thursday.

At its annual outdoor meeting in Diversity Plaza last night, Queens Community Board 3 voted to support two traffic safety projects: a new neighborhood Slow Zone in Jackson Heights and nine additional pedestrian refuge islands on Northern Boulevard, one of the borough's most dangerous arterial streets.

DOT has proposed concrete safety improvements for Northern Boulevard and Broadway, two of the most dangerous streets in Queens. If supported by Community Boards 2 and 3 next month, the projects could be implemented by the end of the year.

Sometimes, it's the little things that make a big difference. Manuel de Dios Unanue Triangle provides a speck of green along Roosevelt Avenue in the packed Jackson Heights neighborhood, but for years, there was nowhere to sit.