Is this sign needed next on Hicks Street?

Unless otherwise noted, the speed limit on all NYC streets is 30mph. However, many drivers routinely break that speed and evade ticketing by our police department so in recent years the Department of Transportation has changed the approach to ensuring safer streets. From striping new lanes, narrowing certain streets, and installing many bike lanes, new techniques have been added to the city’s toolkit, the Street Design Manual.
 
One Cobble Hill street sorely in need of such traffic calming is Hicks Street, the road adjacent to the BQE trench that was the recent site of tragic fatality. Last week the Department of Transportation installed a digital speed sign to put drivers on alert. DNAinfo has more on the issue…

“The speed sign is a simple, but smart way to put drivers on alert,” said Dave ‘Paco’ Abraham, vice president of the Cobble Hill Association. “But it’s just one small step forward.”

For years the Cobble Hill Association has joined with other civic groups asking our elected officials to Fix the Ditch with both traffic calming and landscaping on Hicks Street as well as bike/ped pedestrian bridges that would link the streets cut in half by Robert Moses’ trench so many decades ago. Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez secured federal transportation funds to develop The BQE Enhancement Study and hundreds of residents came to workshops to help create a series of potential improvements that are a piece-meal, but practical approach. Its imperative upon residents and local civic groups to continue demanding improvements, and with the Enhancement Study now laying out a clear path to that goal, its imperative upon all of our local elected officials to secure the funds to make a safer Hicks street a reality.