As you may have recently seen, the Kissena Corridor Park Conservancy just wrote a letter requesting better lighting in Kissena Corridor Park.  Unfortunately there has been a history of crimes in that park.  The community is focused on making this park safe for everyone.

The Eastern Queens Greenway understands that the best way to get crime out of a park is to get neighbors into it.  We have already been building a campaign to creating better access to the park (you can help improve the paths by signing our Kissena Way petition).  We also want to help support the community by requesting better lighting.  Criminals look for quiet and abandoned locations so by increasing the visibility and activity in the park we can help expel crime for good.  We recently sent out the below letter to our local elected officials and government agencies to help improve Kissena Corridor Park as soon as possible.

As you know, the Eastern Queens Greenway’s goal is to create family safe park access. Our Kissena Way project looks to fill in the gaps in the greenway connecting Flushing Meadows / Corona Park to Alley Pond Park.

One of the biggest gaps in this greenway is through Kissena Corridor Park, a historically underutilized space. We hope to bring more community members into the park with the Kissena Way, but we understand that the park also needs other resources to be inviting to the community. Upgrading the lighting in the park will make it more appealing to neighbors, open up some of the darker areas as community space, and help deter criminals.

We understand that creating a greenway through the park and upgrading the lighting are both large projects. We feel that working on these projects concurrently gives our community the best chance for big improvements as soon as possible. Having specific lighting along the Kissena Way could be a great way to show park goers how to follow the greenway. Kissena Corridor Park currently has relatively low usage for being in the middle of such a dense neighborhood. We owe it to our neighbors to make Kissena Corridor Park safe and accessible for everyone.