Parking at a premium on Riverdale Avenue

N. Clark Judd

As construction of Con Edison's highvoltage, underground power line continues straight through the heart of Riverdale, so do the headaches.

The contractor building the power line, Felix Associates, has been working for the past few weeks in several-block patches of Riverdale Avenue just south of Henry Hudson Parkway, between West 231st and West 238th streets. Several weeks ago, they began work on a manhole at West 225th Street, and expected last week to begin running pipe north from West 225th to West 230th streets, along Broadway.

As Felix continues work on the power line, which will run from Yonkers to Manhattan, workers are tearing up one of Riverdale's busiest commercial corridors - and business owners are feeling the pinch.

"My clients are all 15 to 20 minutes late because they have to keep circling and circling," said Suzanne Axelbank, who runs a hair salon on West 238th Street just around the corner from Riverdale Avenue. "So, for me, it's been a very big deal."

Con Edison has taken the six parking spots closest to Riverdale Avenue on the north side of West 238th Street - directly across the street from Ms. Axelbank's shop - to store construction materials and equipment. Currently, according to a recent e-mail from Con Edison's director of Bronx public affairs, Eric Soto, three of six spaces are in use and the other three will be used shortly.

Con Edison construction has also claimed almost the entire west side of Riverdale Avenue between West 231st and West 230th streets. Earlier this month, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz took issue with that. Initially, people were being ticketed for parking there, though the contractor had not posted "no parking" signs. Instead, the contractor strategically placed duct tape over times listed on existing signs that originally explained when there was to be no parking due to street sweeping. Those have since been replaced with more obvious signs.

While not everyone on Riverdale Avenue has suffered from reduced parking, it has been an issue for Andre Tellec of Jasper's Pizza on Riverdale Avenue at West 238th Street. For a time, Con Edison had blocked off the parking from West 236th to West 238th streets along Riverdale Avenue - right in front of his shop.

"Customers had to double park just to get a slice," Mr. Tellec complained.

After City Councilman Oliver Koppell, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz and Community Board 8 all put pressure on Con Edison, Mr. Soto sent an April 11 e-mail saying those parking spaces had been relinquished - but Con Edison plans to return.

"We acknowledge that the meters that were plugged on West 236th to 238th streets have upset local residents and shoppers and removed valuable parking spaces that impacted the businesses," Mr. Soto wrote in his letter.

He added that work was to resume along that stretch last week, but on April 16 and 18, those parking spaces were open for use.

Con Edison has been releasing its promised updates containing information on where upcoming construction is to take place - but they haven't been on schedule. Con Edison officials have repeatedly said those updates will come one to two weeks in advance. The most recent one came three days before that week's work was supposed to begin.

This is part of the April 24, 2008 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

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