If you have the unfortunate luck of living in Flatbush and having children in yeshiva you may have spent up to an hour today trying to get your kids to school. Why? Because the DOT, led by Commissioner Janette Sadik-Kahn, ripped up the streets over a month ago and didn’t think to repair them until today.
If you live in Flatbush, you know that Avenue O is a two lane street, and is considered a major thoroughfare. Half of the community in Flatbush was away for the past 11 weeks for the summer vacation. The streets were empty of traffic. Residents returned from their vacations to a path of destruction left by the D.O.T.
Most schools started this week on Tuesday and Wednesday, and instead of an easy commute to the neighborhood schools, and instead of people being able to commute to work, they were stuck in standstill traffic – some for over an hour – while trying to drive a mere 8 short blocks.
Crews decided to break up the streets on Avenue O between Ocean Avenue and Coney Island Avenue to prepare them for paving crews. (We won’t discuss the insane fact that streets are first broken up, and then two weeks later a different crew come to pave it. Streets are a mess, your undercarriage gets destroyed, tires busted on the potholes, while a different crew takes their sweet old time to arrive. That’s for a different article at a later date.)
Keep in mind that there is a very large Catholic School on Avenue O and East 13th Street, which started their school year on Wednesday morning. They were livid to find out what was taking place. They had all summer to work on the streets of Flatbush, but no, they decided to start their work AFTER school starts.
By now you are probable wondering: how is it possible that the DOT didn’t even know that today was the first day of yeshiva for thousands in our community? Why didn’t they spend the last month repairing the streets BEFORE the start of yeshiva? The answer to both of these questions is…
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
12 Responses
Err, Avenue O between Ocean Avenue and Coney Island Avenue is a ONE-WAY street, not two-way. It is two-way AFTER CI Ave., towards Ocean Parkway.
Yes, it is a two-lane street all along, whether one-way or two-way.
Public school for the entire city begins this week. Over a million children and thousands of teachers will go back to school. No matter where construction in the would take place there this week there would be major headaches driving. Not just Flatbush.
Public school for the entire city begins this week. Over a million children and thousands of teachers will go back to school. No matter where construction would take place this week there would be major headaches driving. Not just Flatbush.
8 blocks? WALK – and yes even in the rain.
The Commissioner is simply trying to make driving difficult for all motorists. She favors bikes.
My comment was insensitive….the city really needs to work something out…now that I saw the FScoop footage….wow pretty primitive I must say….
big a some people might be coming from 25 blocks away but need to get through area. walking is not always a viable option.
Actually while you were all away, I was home this Summer. The DOT fixed numerous streets in those 11 weeks. They can’t do it all in that amount of time. Ave L, Ave M and parts of Ave O were done while everyone was away. In fact, as they were working, I was thinking how nice it was for them to do this work while most of Flatbush was empty. Imagine had they decided to do Ave M or L while people were home! I think we should be grateful they did a lot of the project while people were away. (Oh, Ave N was also done in the summer) Why do we always have to harp on the negative? Be a little more positive, why don’t you? It does wonders for the heart.
#1,
learn to read before you criticize!
The author said two-LANE NOT two-WAY
Dear Commonsense,
You construct a valid point. I am thinking more like a city person who easily walks 2 miles. It’s a different lifestyle but you are right….most of the vehicles that went through that mess yesterday were not locals…they were passing thru..in addition it was wet weather.
Thanks
Big A
One correction – the school at East 13th and Ave. O is not a Catholic school. It’s a secular special ed school, known formally as William O’Connor – Midwood School, that rents space in a church-owned building that housed a Catholic school many years ago.
an Israeli Yid