After receiving numerous complaints from residents, Community Board 12 reached out to the Department of Transportation to try and resolve the traffic nightmare caused by the 14th Avenue resurfacing project.

CB12 has an agreement with the DOT that all resurfacing projects in their district are to be done during the months of July and August when most people are away so the work causes as minimal a traffic problem as possible.

In this case, the 14th Avenue resurfacing was scheduled to take place in the summer but was pulled from the summer schedule at the last minute due to funding concerns. Had it not been done now, the resurfacing wouldn’t occur until next year. Additionally, Community Board 12 was told that the work would only extend to 41st Street; DOT failed to notify CB12 that the work actually extends till 47th Street.

As the traffic mounted and the area came to a complete standstill, Community Board 12 reached out to the Transportation Commissioner requesting that the work should be done in a way that does not inconvenience the hundreds of people going to work and thousands of children going to school.

“The DOT agreed to our request and they will be doing the work tomorrow morning starting earlier than today and will work from 39th Street going north towards Church Avenue, so as to leave the busiest part of 14th Avenue open to traffic. They also promised to make sure to be totally done with the milling tomorrow and not on Friday as previously planned,” said District Manager Barry Spitzer. “Additionally, DOT agreed to hold off on the paving until they can work on our request that they should do the paving on Shabbos and do it in one day. When we will know the paving schedule, we will notify the community,” added Spitzer.

“Although a lot of things went wrong, I would like to thank the Commissioner for responding to us and getting to work right away on rectifying the situation,” said Chairman Yidel Perlstein. “The Department of Transportation pledged to continue working with us on ways to avoid the miscommunication that occurred and learn from the mistakes that happened this time around,” added Perlstein.

“I would also like to express my deepest thanks to the XO of the 66th Precinct, Captain Manny Gonzalez, for working with me late last night to station police officers at key intersections on 14th Avenue to help ease the traffic congestion and to the Boro Park Shomrim for sending their members over this morning to lend vital support to the NYPD,” said Perlstein.

As always, you can follow Community Board 12 on Twitter at @BrooklynCB12 for the latest community news, notifications and alerts.

(YWN Desk – NYC)