Mountain or mole hill?

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Dear Mayor de Blasio,

I’m bothering you with a problem that, in one sense, doesn’t add up to a decent-sized molehill, but in another — the responsiveness of the people in your administration — is truly a mountain. It has to do with a mistake by the Bronx Department of Transportation (DOT) that is costing residents in this area two sorely needed parking places. That’s the molehill part.

Here’s what happened: A few years ago, the DOT in its great wisdom, decided that where West 242nd Street meets Greystone Avenue; the painting of a crosswalk across 242nd Street was a necessity. This was a bit inexplicable since it is not a complete intersection. The west side of Greystone faces a park and the one-block stretch of Greystone north of the crosswalk has no sidewalk at all, just a very narrow curb made up of cobblestones — almost impossible to walk on. The park side has a regular sidewalk along that one-block stretch.

But okay, explicable or not, we now had a crosswalk. The problem was that the parking regulations sign on the north side of 242nd Street was placed where the stop sign is and the parking regulations sign permitted parking to the east of the sign but prohibited parking to the west. There was an arrow to make that clear. But with the addition of the wonderful new crosswalk, drivers were confused because when they parked where the regulations sign indicated that it was permissible, they might park in the crosswalk and receive a ticket.

So, to remove that confusion, our local assemblyman, Jeffrey Dinowitz, had his office request that the DOT move the parking regulations sign one car length to the east, so that the “No Parking Permitted” arrow would include the crosswalk.

But the DOT workers made a mistake. Again for no discernible reason, they moved the sign not one, but three car lengths to the east, thereby eliminating two additional spaces on this street that once had room for six cars. This is an area where parking space has become increasingly hard to find.

The error was made more than three months ago. Complaints from residents and from elected officials have resulted in absolutely nothing. Three weeks ago, I wrote to the Bronx DOT via the Commissioner’s website and received first an automatic response noting my complaint and giving me a case number, and then an e-mail saying “We … are working with our Borough Engineering Office on a resolution.” The rest of that e-mail went into detail about the DOT’s mission and how wonderful it is in improving the city. In other words, don’t bother us with your petty problems. 

Correcting this error would take all of 10 minutes — the signs are mounted not in concrete, but in bare earth. But in 15 weeks or so the DOT has done nothing, not even communicated with us. That’s the mountain part of this problem. All of us who so looked forward to the coming of a new city administration that promised to be responsive to the needs of ordinary citizens wonder what’s going on.

I hope you can help.

This letter was originally sent to the mayor’s office, according to its author, “about the attitude of public officials who like to call themselves public servants, at least they do so in public.” Michael Spielman is a Riverdale resident. Point of view is a column open to all.

Greystone Avenue, Department of Transportation, Bill de Blasio, By Michael Spielman

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