Our next PBTCA meeting will be held on Monday, October 20, at St. Theresa’s auditorium between Pilgrim and Mayflower avenues. This meeting is an invitation to our community from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. You are all welcome to bring your questions and get answers from our guests. The meeting will be from 6.30 to 8 p.m. followed by our regular meeting.
On Thursday, September 18, I attended Community Board 10’s meeting held at Fort Schuyler House. Several people registered to speak concerning their issues. I spoke and stated that PBTCA was still patiently waiting for the 20 mile per hour exit speed signs on Hutchinson River Parkway from the Whitestone Bridge to Pelham Manor; a full stop sign on the Hutchinson River Parkway Service Road on the corner of Mayflower Avenue coming off of exit 3E and an exit ramp on the Hutchinson River Parkway North (just before the bridge) going into Co-op City. These are all requests to slow down the speed of cars and eliminate a lot of traffic that unnecessarily drives through our community. I also demanded that the residents of St. Paul Avenue stop backing out of St. Paul Avenue onto 196th Street endangering the safety of the pedestrians and drivers on the two way street.
The highlight of this meeting for me was when there was a proposal to vote on reversing the direction of two streets. A member of the board strongly opposed this proposal and stated that the board should not repeat the same error of St. Paul Avenue. He requested that the proposal be sent back to the D.O.T for a study first and then the board could vote on the proposal after they received the D.O.T. study. AMEN!!
This was not the way St. Paul reversal was done. The vote at the community board is evidence that thousands of taxpaying residents in the Pelham Bay community did not have one clue of the proposal to reverse St. Paul. There were 29 residents who showed up at the community board. Twenty-six were in favor and three were opposed to reverse the direction of St. Paul. I repeat – in a community of thousands of taxpaying residents only 29 people heard of the meeting to reverse the direction of St. Paul Avenue.
After the reversal of St. Paul was done, over 500 residents immediately sent petitions to Community Board 10 in opposition to the reversal. The community felt that this reversal was done unfairly, unjustly and underhanded. We asked for the impact study and patiently waited. We were eventually informed that there never was an impact study.
Why should we be forced to wait for a study when St. Paul was reversed without an impact study? The reversal of one half of St. Paul Avenue continues to endanger the safety of every adjacent street and compounds the disastrous traffic at Pelham Bay Station. There are many proposals being offered but they can take years and the community does not want to wait years for these proposals to take effect. Reverse St. Paul back to the way it was, and then we can all wait for the safe proposals of the New York City and New York State D.O.T. study.
Join your local civic associations. The 2009 dues of $10 includes a subscription to the Bronx Times Reporter and refreshments at our meetings. Dues can be paid at our October 20 meeting The angry voices of all our Americans citizens were heard by all the senators and congressman on the $700 billion bail out. Let your voices be heard loud and clear and let your votes count.
