Fix this before someone gets hurt

To the editor:

The walkway connecting to the end of Arlington Avenue is a disgrace. That the city has ignored numerous requests to repair the path and handrails is even more of a disgrace.

We have an extremely dangerous passage from the end of Arlington to Kappock Street, where all the bus stops are, like the Bx10, Bx20, BxM1, BxM2, and the bus for the Metro-North trains. There are also neighborhood stores in Knolls Crescent.

People who live in the adjoining neighborhood are forced to use this treacherous pathway going to and coming from work, the stores, or any other reasons where they need access to a bus. The surface is a series of patches of asphalt with holes — some as deep as five inches.

The handrails are destroyed or missing. It is heavily trafficked — the elderly with carts coming back from shopping, or from the doctor must ascend this path that the city owns at their own peril, with no handrails and a broken asphalt surface.

Over a year ago, a car mistook the walkway for a road and made it down halfway, destroying the handrails before becoming lodged and had to be cut out by the fire department.

There was no repair for the handrails, and the cut-off post protruded above the surface to trip people and impale them if they should fall on them.

As previously stated, there have been numerous requests sent to the borough president as well as others trying to get some action on this matter. Am I to presume that until the lawsuits become more expensive, then the repair there will be no action?

Hugh Sullivan

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