Broken street lights near Van Cortlandt present safety issues

If you call a 311 operator, they’ll tell you a complaint has already been made.”

Fieldston Resident

There seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel, or in this case, on Broadway, regarding a solution to rectify an ongoing street light issue in Riverdale.

Since August, three streetlights located at the intersection of Broadway between West 261st and 262nd streets adjacent to Van Cortlandt Park have stayed pitch black and continue to present a safety issue for pedestrians and cyclists at night, according to residents who frequent the intersection.

Despite several locals who have attempted to submit complaints to 311 more than six months have gone by without illumination at the Broadway intersection and the issue remains unresolved.

Riverdalians have been unable to do so, however, due to 311’s website regulations, which doesn’t accept additional complaints when a complaint has already been reported.

A local resident who lives near Mosholu Avenue and who wished not to disclose her name to maintain privacy, believes 311 has developed a loophole to not track their short shortcomings.

“This is a sure way to keep people from complaining while keeping their stats low,” the resident said. “If you call a 311 operator, they’ll tell you a complaint has already been made.”

Forced to take the Bx9 bus at night, the resident said she attempted to file a complaint through 311 several times before she was transferred to the city’s Department of Transportation (NYCDOT).

The Press reached out to 311 to file a report regarding the broken streetlights at the North Riverdale intersection before a 311 representative told our publication a complaint had already been filed.

In October, she started to contact Councilman Eric Dinowitz’s office regarding the broken streetlights and received a response from his office, telling her they would investigate the matter.

In the CARE311 legislative package introduced by Dinowitz, the councilman has passed one bill, Local Law 72 of 2024, to make sure wait times are decreased for callers. He also introduced other bills as part of the package to guarantee accessibility, responsibility and efficiency on the part of the city agency.

Dinowitz added he had nothing bad to say about 311 and is only intent on improving the situation. He said the information would be published online every month, for the NYC Council as well as the public.

“So, the next time there’s a [complaint] [street or] traffic lights are broken, we cannot only say there’s been a number of 311 complaints about this, we can say you’re actually not solving the problem — and we know that because of the feedback data,” Dinowitz said.

Regarding why 311 does not accept duplicate complaints, the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation (OTI) told The Press, “If an agency determines a complaint reports the same issue as a previously submitted report within the same time frame, it may be marked as a duplicate.”

A representative for OTI said only the agency responsible for the service request can determine if a case can be closed, in this situation, the Department of Transportation. The Press reached out to the NYC DOT inquiring on the timeline for the streetlight repairs and is awaiting response.

The spokesperson added 311 appreciates Council member Dinowitz’s “shared commitment to transparency” in response to the Dinowitz bill.

“We just want to make it better — but what do people do in a situation when they’ve had a streetlight that’s been out for months,” Dinowitz said.

The resident, who also asked Dinowitz to intervene and contact NYC DOT to correct the ongoing problem, says the lack of lighting at the intersection at night presents a hazard for pedestrians.

“It’s a safety issue for people coming off the bus or those who traverse the sidewalk on the north side of the street,” she said.

Fed up with the lack of maintenance, the resident believes it's part of a ploy by the city to force locals out of the neighborhood.

“It seems city government is set on running us out of this area, as if the looming men’s shelter was not enough to send us packing,” the resident said to The Press in an email from October, referring to the men’s shelter currently under construction at 6661 Broadway.

As of press time, the three streetlights on Broadway between West 261st and 262nd street remain non-operational.