Cross Bay Blvd on the verge of collapse

THE CITY 

The cracked and crumbling Cross Bay Boulevard, one of the three paths out of the Rockaways, has been the subject of an outsized share of citizen complaints, according to an analysis by THE CITY. 

The thoroughfare has been a problem for decades, according to frustrated residents of Broad Channel. That’s the neighborhood on an island in Jamaica Bay just north of the Rockaways and south of mainland Queens, with the boulevard running through it and A train tracks immediately to the east.

“If there’s a roadway collapse, or if there’s another hurricane, Broad Channel has nowhere to go and people from the center of Rockaway have no way to get out,” local Community Board 14 Chairperson Dolores Orr told THE CITY.

The asphalt of the boulevard is pocked with deep, visible cracks and depressions, even ten years after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy highlighted the need for resiliency work in the area. These days, locals are renewing the call for a complete rebuild of the roadway — which has been the top item on Community Board 14’s capital project list since 1990, including in the most recent budget draft published in mid-October.

Dan Mundy Sr., 85, a lifelong Broad Channel resident and former president of the neighborhood’s civic association, recalled receiving a call in the early 2000s from a local homeowner upset that her house — just doors down from a concrete drainage tunnel that supports a section of Cross Bay Boulevard — shook when trucks passed it. 

Mundy said he eventually learned the problem stemmed from the installation of new sewers in the 1990s — a project that required digging trenches and hollowing out the concrete base that supports both sides of the boulevard. This, he said, in turn destabilized the tunnel — and the boulevard at large — as solid concrete was replaced by a patchwork remedy. 

Three decades later, trucks, buses and even cars thud loudly as they drive over the cracks formed where the tunnel walls meet the road.

 “It’s an accident waiting to happen,” said Mundy, pointing to the tunnel, which is usually walkable when the tide is low but was flooded by a high tide when THE CITY visited Thursday morning. “When you do go under there, you can really see where the concrete is falling off. The [steel] rebars are all sticking out.”

Mundy pointed to another section along the tunnel — also known as a culvert or “sluiceway” to locals —  where he said a pothole has opened up time and again. From inside the culvert, Munday said he can “almost put my hands up to the street” where the weak spot is.

“They keep coming and they fix it, and it falls apart again,” Mundy told THE CITY. “So it’s just a Band-Aid they’re doing on everything here.”

The cracks and potholes along the culvert are just one symptom of how the sewer installations that gutted the boulevard in the 1990s have, over the years, continued to destabilize the nearly century-old roadway, said Mundy. The boulevard is estimated to carry an average of about 25,000 cars a day.

I'm going to put this here like this because the people at the DOT really need the exposure:

The city transportation department, however, seems unworried. “The Cross Bay Boulevard culvert is structurally sound,” DOT spokesperson Vin Barone told THE CITY after conferring with DEP. “DOT is working with its sister agencies to conduct routine inspections while we continue to explore long-term infrastructure upgrades.”

Sure Vinny, tell Ydanis and your fellow bike zealots there to keep exploring, maybe more paint on the bike lanes will stop the next deluge. 

 

#ScenesOfQueens

Blood on the leaves. Gateway National Park. pic.twitter.com/MTTS8EnHqe

— JQ LLC (@ImpunityCity) October 27, 2022

Some improvements in Flushing Meadows Park

Dear Queens Crapper:

A few years ago I sent you some pictures of this stretch of road in Flushing Meadows Park.  After extensive work there was still significant flooding. Well, that stretch was under construction again recently (for a long time!) but they seem to have solved the drainage problem.  There is still a bit of water but this picture was taken today after a ton of rain this week.  This is on the north side of the lake.  They also fixed a chronically flooded spot on the south side. 

As you can see from the second picture, there is still work to be done, but I thought to be fair to the parks department I should let you know of the improvements.

Willets Point businesses have had it with the broken roads

Queens Chronicle

 
Fifty businesses in Willets Point signed a petition sent out last week to Department of Transportation Borough Commissioner Nicole Garcia, requesting to meet with her about the industrial area’s dilapidated, cratered streets.

Decades have passed since most of the streets in the Iron Triangle were repaved. They have been compared to those of Kabul, Afghanistan.

The DOT did do some repaving work in the area several weeks ago. It fixed up the western border of Willets Point, 126th Street between Northern Boulevard and Roosevelt Avenue, right by Citi Field. It also had workers resurface two blocks at the northern boundary of the area, 126th Place and 127th Street between Northern and 34th Avenue.

But Willets Point business owners didn’t respond with much, if any, praise. The vast majority of the area’s shops are located more centrally within it. The west side of the 126th Place block that the city repaved doesn’t have any businesses on it.

Critics charged the DOT just wanted to make 126th Street look nice for an anticipated ceremony celebrating the block by Citi Field being co-named for Mets legend Tom Seaver. They said the agency did the one-block repavings on 126th Place and 127th Street to placate business owners who might be upset.

The DOT says it does not have the in-house resources available to repave Willets Point at large.
The agency also hasn’t responded to the petitioners, according to Irene Prestigiacamo, an Iron Triangle property owner who wrote the letter to Garcia on behalf of Willets Point United.

“Being very frank with you, I don’t expect to [hear back] right away,” she told the Chronicle.

I highlighted this because the DOT did something similar in South Richmond Hill last October when they resurfaced three blocks days before a movie was being shot on Lefferts Blvd.

 

Bayside streets are a lunar landscape

QNS


Residents are criticizing the poor street conditions in Bayside, as cars traveling down local streets run into potholes, large cracks and uneven roads.

Some like Danielle Chase, blame the ongoing sewer and water main replacement for the pothole hell plaguing the neighborhood.

“Most of the poor street conditions are due to the never-ending construction going on. 38th Avenue from the service road to 217th [Street] is a warzone,” Chase told QNS.

 According to nyc.gov, residents can file complaints about potholes, cave-ins, utility damage and hummocks — roadway asphalt that has been pushed into a wave shape — online or by calling 311. But area resident Arlene Mordjikin said the complaints have not made a difference.

“Bell Boulevard between Horace Harding Expressway and 48th Avenue needs to be repaved. I’ve reached out to 311 since 2016 and I’m still waiting,” said Mordjikian.