By Mark Hallum
Woodhaven Residents Block Association announced at a meeting last week that the Department of Transportation would be putting off the implementation of the Select Bus Service plan, which has been a major source of community outrage, until 2017. But the postponement, which should have been a step in the right direction to those hoping to stop the plan, was regarded as nothing more than a deceptive ploy to residents who saw a bus stop being installed just two days after the city said it would wait.
The controversial plan would reconfigure lanes and eliminate left turns at major intersections while installing a bus stop in the median of an accident-prone thoroughfare, which residents contend the Sanitation Dept. neglects during snowstorms.
At the Oct. 13 meeting, WRBA Director Alexander Blenkinsopp said the announcement to postpone the plan came shortly after an earlier Community Board 9 resolution to openly opposed SBS, which was initially taken as a gesture of goodwill. But the satisfaction at this was soon diminished two days later when construction began on a bus stop installation.
“There was a construction crew on the southwest corner of Woodhaven Boulevard [and Jamaica Avenue]. They were jackhammering the asphalt in the service road,” WRBA Vice President Giedra Kregzdys said, explaining her conversation with one of the construction workers. “He said they’re expanding the sidewalk, the median, for a bus stop. I was shocked. Obviously they weren’t grating it, they weren’t just painting lines where they might possibly put a construction site at some point. They were destroying the street.”
WRBA President Martin Colberg said that continued opposition to SBS is the best option for keeping traffic on the streets of Woodhaven to a minimum while keeping commuters and pedestrians safe.
“This is something that we’re going to continue to stay on top of, because DOT is going to try to push it down our throats,” Colberg said, mentioning that he would keep reaching out to elected officials. “But that only works when people back down. We’re going to continue to fight. We have over 2,000 legit signatures on our petition saying we’re against this, it isn’t safe… They’re going to have a big fight on their hands, this ain’t over.”
Kenny Wilson, second vice chairman of CB 9, said he was told by DOT the construction was just an expansion of the median by 300 feet along Jamaica Avenue to accommodate the bus stop. Wilson, who claims to have a good relationship with the DOT’s deputy borough commissioner , said he felt he had been deceived. Instead of being told straight out that the city would be moving forward, he thought that he had been given a line instead of a real explanation.
State Assemblyman Mike Miller (D-Woodhaven) said DOT had told him the median was being expanded for pedestrian safety and had nothing to do with implementation of SBS. But when he questioned the DOT representative further about other aspects of the construction, he was told that it was not up yet up for discussion.
Reach reporter Mark Hallum by e-mail at mhall
