Traffic congestion follows gas leak

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Emergency vehicles responding to a gas leak at West 239th Street and Henry Hudson Parkway forced traffic and city buses to detour for hours on Monday afternoon and into the evening.

A Con Edison spokesman said the company was carrying out planned gas work in the area around the Riverdale Monument when a six-inch plastic gas main sustained damage and began to leak.

FDNY and additional Con Ed personnel responded to the scene at 1:35 p.m., roping off a security perimeter on Riverdale Avenue from the Henry Hudson Parkway to West 238th Street.

An Con Ed worker on site said the company had brought the leak under control by around 4 p.m. Con Ed and FDNY remained afterwards as a precautionary measure. There were no evacuations or service interruptions as a result of the leak, the Con Ed spokesman said.

The work forced the Bx7, Bx10, BxM1 and BxM2 buses to reroute during busy post-school and work hours, veering off their usual Henry Hudson Parkway routes onto Independence Avenue, down West 246th Street and back onto the Parkway.

Southbound buses on Riverdale Avenue and Henry Hudson Parkway also experienced delays, with some riders waiting at bus stops for nearly an hour at the time of the rerouting.

Carolyn Jones said her usual 10-minute ride from West 236th Street to her home at the Skyview apartments on Arlington Avenue became an hour-long commute after her bus stopped before West 238th Street.

“It’s just a mess. A real mess,” she said, “because they sat there for so long trying to figure out where to go, how to reroute the city buses.”

Riverdalian Jim Grossman, who lives at the Fieldston Garden Apartments next to the site of the leak, said his own bus was diverted to Independence Avenue on his way home.

“We can smell the gas here… It’s not very pleasant,” he said as he stood outside his apartment around 3:30 p.m. “They say it’s not dangerous, but it could get dangerous.”

Mr. Grossman said fire trucks left the scene around 5 p.m., allowing the West 239th Street bridge, as well as Riverdale Avenue, to reopen.

But Con Edison remained at the site into the evening to monitor the situation, its spokesman said, leaving Johnson Avenue closed between West 238th and 239th streets on Monday night.

While Con Ed attributed Monday's leak to damage during work, winter traditionally sees a rise in leaks, with changes in temperature straining the infrastructure's pipes.

Con Ed, gas leak, Riverdale Monument, Maya Rajamani

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