Thursday, October 28, 2010

Woodside wall is woefully inadequate

From the Daily News:

A group of Woodside residents has been griping for years about the noise, garbage and exhaust fumes coming from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway into their neighborhood.

But yesterday's groundbreaking for a new barrier wall that was supposed to bring relief was bittersweet.

The 12-foot-high concrete wall will run 250 feet along Laurel Hill Blvd., an off-ramp on the westbound side of the BQE. But residents said that the wall will only protect a small commercial strip of the road. The residential area farther away will still be vulnerable to the traffic jams that plague the service road during rush hours.

"This is a Band-Aid on a wound that has been festering for many years," acknowledged Rep. Joseph Crowley, who allocated $1.8 million in federal funding for the project. "This is just the beginning, not the end," he said of the sound and pollution barrier slated to be completed next spring.

A total of $2.05 million was allocated for the state Department of Transportation's construction of the wall, with Assemblywoman Margaret Markey kicking in $250,000 in state funds.

But the construction costs will be only $673,000. The $1.38 million left over will go toward modifications and cost over-runs if they arise, said Adam Levine, a DOT spokesman.

The leftover cash won't be enough for a sound barrier on the other side of the road where residents say it is needed most, Levine said, because there is already a large brick embankment there. Building a "structure on top of a structure" could cost millions more, he added.


$1.38M for modifications and cost overruns? Wow.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

$1.38M for modifications and cost overruns? Wow.

Double what the project costs for mods and overruns. Are you f%$*ing serious? No wonder this city and state have no money. Although I must admit I find it tough to believe that this project will cost less than 700K in the first place anyway. I'm sure someone underbid to get the project and then it will turn into, "Oops! We didn't realize it would cost 5 times as much to do this!" and not only will the overrun funds be gone, but they'll either leave it half done for lack of funds, or pull funds from some other budget like the library, or hospitals, or police.

Here I was all ready to come in here and say that I doubt most of these whiners have been there since before the BQE, so they should have realized living there would be noisy and dirty, but instead I'm even more disgusted by the waste of money.

Anonymous said...

Only if you moved into the triangle formed by Queens Blvd, the Brookyln-Queens Expressway, and 58th Street before 1939 can you be surprised that it's often noisy.

If it is serenity you seek, try another zip code and save our tax dollars.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like Crowley and Markey want the public to think they are doing something, so they came up with the wall idea which will cost us millions. How about we vote them out and save all the taxpayers millions plus their salaries?

Anonymous said...

Mister Crowley! Tear down this wall!

Anonymous said...

"Huh?"

LOL The rent is too damn high! The Jews are the slave masters! If you are not Jewish you are prohibited from living in this area!