IRVING DEJOHN/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
The intersection of 30th St. and Thomson Ave. following an overhaul by the city Department of Transportation. The agency closed off through traffic and added the concrete barriers and plants, in hopes of protecting pedestrians that cross the busy street.
The city has overhauled a fatal street in front of LaGuardia Community College, making it harder for a pedestrian to be hit the way one teenager was when he was killed earlier this year.
The Department of Transportation elimintated a former through street that used to serve as a shortcut for cars looking to make a quick turn from Thomson Ave. to 30th St.
Turns off of Thomson Ave. are now prohibited. Students will be further protected while they wait to cross the street by a makeshift pedestrian plaza, which has been created with concrete barriers and several plants.
“This is just the beginning,” said Dalila Hall, the agency’s Queens Commissioner said Monday. “It’s reclaimed public space for pedestrians.”
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Tenzin Drudak, a 16-year–old Tibetan-born high school student remembered as an aspiring rapper with a sharp sense of humor, was struck and killed by an out-of-control minivan on March 11.
He was standing on the sidewalk, waiting to cross with several others, when an out-of-control minivan struck them. Only Drudak was killed.
Tsetan Yangzom, Drudak’s mother, said she had warned her son about the intersection before his death.
“I would always notice that the intersection was very unsafe,” said Yangzom, 44, through a family friend and translator. “I’d ask him to be careful when he crossed the intersection.”
The distraught mother has yet to see the improvements first hand, but hopes they will prevent future tragedies.
Even with the changes, the area remains rocky for the steady stream of high school and college students that traverse it, local leaders said.
Cars continue to flout the new regulations, prompting Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer to call for traffic cops to help keep motorists honest.
Just after Van Bramer made his comments during a Monday press conference, a livery car breached the barricaded area and executed a bewildering multiple-point turn. Another vehicle made a swift left turn onto the same street.
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Both manuevers were illegal under the newly created regulations.
“It demonstrates how potentially dangerous this area still is,” said Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside).
Student Sabrina Gibbs was skeptical that the fabricated pedestrian zone will be a silver bullet for the deadly street.
“You’ve gotta wait and see what happens,” she said.
Meanwhile, Yangzom has yet to return to the site where her only child was killed; it’s a wound opened each time she rides the 7 train and gets a bird’s eye view of the crash zone, she said.
“Every day is a struggle getting up in the morning,” said Yangzom. “It’s going to take a few years to get over this.”
