  The
Queens-Yellowstone Blvd intersection may well be the most dangerous
pedestrian crossing in New York City, mostly due to its exaggerated
angles and angular offshoots stemming from it, like Jewel Avenue
and yet a 5th section, the third going eastbound, of Death Blvd,
which slices around a tiny 2-block long sliver of parkland.
The apartment towers surrounding Yellowstone form the Parker
Towers complex, a late 1950's development. The giant orange and
white sign in front of us tells the sad tale of this intersection,
most of whose walk signals have been converted from text to hand/stick
figure graphics, which eventually will take over at all city
corners. Now here's where things like this flip me out! What
is wrong with this picture here? If the premise for putting up
graphical signals is that too many people either cannot read
English, or cannot read, period, then what is the point of complementing
the hand with another sign telling the illiterate to wait for
the walk signal. It should at least tell them to wait for the
stick figure. The other intersections around here still have
the old alphabetical signals. I still feel they should replace
both types of signal with a simple seconds countdown signal. |
