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choose to stay indoors rather than risk injury because the streets remain unsafe. This continues to be the untold statistic.

It is vital that the Dot immediately address pedestrian needs and not focus solely on level of service and roadway design to accommodate vehicles at the expense of pedestrians in this community. In addition, in light of the extremely hazardous conditions on Queens Boulevard, we do not understand why the construction and design standards are not equivalent to that of Manhattan, which has traffic signals at every intersection, adequate signal timing controlling legal speed limits and adequate pedestrian walk times, and curb ramps that meet Americans For Disability Act (ADA) standards. After all, this is one New York City and one DOT and all citizens should receive equal protection and service, especially Forest Hills and Rego Park, which has the highest concentration of elderly people. It is incomprehensible and inhumane to force our aging residents and disabled citizens to walk hundreds of feet in the wrong direction and then forced to wait on dangerous medians for several light cycles in the middle of Queens Boulevard in the extreme cold of winter and the exhausting heat of summer.

We are absolutely opposed to the construction of pedestrian barricades on Queens Boulevard. If the roadway looks like a highway, motorists will use it in that manner. Merely to isolate pedestrians, the victims, as the cause of their own death is appalling, when an inadequate number of crosswalks exists, thereby forcing people to make life-threatening choices, not because they simply won't walk to the nearest crosswalk, but because they physically are unable to do so. Pedestrians are instinctively forced to find alternative routes because at any intersection they are literally run off the road by drivers who refuse to yield the right of way. By adding an adequate number of safely designed crosswalks, you will find that our law-abiding residents will voluntarily use them in accordance with traffic laws

Pedestrian safety needs must be given higher priority and that solutions to address speeding and create safe walking environments should be comprehensive and include engineering of safer roads that support lower speed limits, education of drivers and pedestrians to encourage safe and courteous behaviors, enforcement of existing speed limits and traffic safety laws and evaluation of traffic-related efforts to create a more walkable community.

In the future, we respectfully request that the NYCDOT, when considering any traffic-oriented proposals affecting this community, please base its decisions strictly on its merit with all facets of current law, emphasis on public safety, and preservation of a higher level, Quality Of Life.

In closing, we respectfully request that this committee personally take a look at the work already completed and evaluate them from community and pedestrian perspectives. Any reasonable person will agree that a more comprehensive design is needed including lower speeds and introduction of traffic calming solutions. If we are left with the work already completed and that work is an indication of future work, then this community is doomed.