FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, May 2, 2016
CONTACT
QUEENS, NY – Borough President Melinda Katz’s Broad Channel Street Raising Task Force this morning reviewed the progress of the $28 million Broad Channel Street Raising Project that will elevate West 11th through 19th Roads to help protect the Broad Channel community from flooding caused by high tides from Jamaica Bay.
“This is one of the best working Task Forces I’ve seen,” said Borough President KATZ. “The agencies involved have been doing a tremendous job in remaining coordinated and prioritizing the community’s needs. They, the contractor, the designer and the community are all to be commended for working together and ensuring that the agreed upon goals are met, disruptions and inconveniences to the community are kept at a minimum, and timelines remain on track.”
The Broad Channel Street Raising Project, which began in August 2014, is a two-phase reconstruction project under the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) and managed by the New York City Department of Design and Construction (DDC). It involves the raising of streets through a “shared streets design” process borrowed from the Netherlands, where roadways and sidewalks are elevated to the same level with only the color of the pavement serving to differentiate the roadway from the sidewalk.
Phase 1 entails the raising of West 11th through West 13th Roads, the neighborhood streets identified as most vulnerable to flooding, on track for anticipated completion by June 2017 as originally scheduled. According to DDC, work has commenced on 11th and 12th Roads and is anticipated for completion by the end of 2016; work on 13th Road will begin this fall.
Phase 2 will cover the raising of West 14th through West 19th Roads. According to the RBA Group, the project’s design firm, designs will be submitted to DDC this week and presented to the community in June. The design stages will conclude in early 2017, with the project anticipated for completion by the end of 2020.
EIC Associates, the contractor, reported they will begin repaving areas of the Broad Channel American Park parking lot this week that are most prone to flooding. The repaving is pursuant to an agreement with the community in return for EIC Associates utilizing a portion of the Broad Channel American Park parking lot as a staging area during construction to store vehicles and equipment. EIC Associates has also committed to repaving the occupied portion of the lot upon the project’s completion.
The Mayor's Office of Housing Recovery Operations (HRO) was also on hand to discuss how Superstorm Sandy recovery efforts under the Build It Back program would be impacted by the Street Raising project. HRO and DDC reported that they continue to coordinate in order to minimize the delays to the elevations of homes through the Build it Back program.
About the Broad Channel Street Raising Project Task Force
Borough President Katz established the Task Force to address issues related to the Broad Channel Street Raising Project, a $28 million effort to elevate streets to better protect the Broad Channel neighborhood from flooding from Jamaica Bay. The Task Force includes the project’s stakeholders and serves as a forum where solutions to any problems that may come up during the project can be discussed and resolved. Borough President Katz chairs the bi-monthly meetings of the Task Force, which includes officials from the New York City Department of Transportation, the New York City Department of Design and Construction, Verizon, National Grid, Time Warner Cable, project contractor EIC Associates, Broad Channel Civic Association President Dan Mundy, Jr. and Jamaica Bay Ecowatchers President Dan Mundy, Sr., along with representatives of State Senator Joseph P. Addabbo Jr., Assemblymember Phillip Goldfeder and City Councilmember Eric Ulrich.
Follow Borough President Katz via @melindakatz or www.facebook.com/queensbpkatz
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