Soundview residents say street conditions have been neglected for years

Linda, who has been there since 2013, says she has made calls and opened 311 tickets for repairs, and "they say it's going to get done, and then it doesn't get done, and then you call it again, and it doesn't get - I never seen anybody come out and look at nothing."

Greg Thompson

Oct 16, 2024, 9:43 PM

Updated 18 days ago

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Soundview residents living on the block of Thieriot Avenue between Story and Lafayette avenues say bad road conditions have been ignored by the city for years.
Linda, who has been there since 2013, says she has made calls and opened 311 tickets for repairs, and "they say it's going to get done, and then it doesn't get done, and then you call it again, and it doesn't get - I never seen anybody come out and look at nothing."
The most obvious issue is how uneven the road is, including a pair of manhole covers that stick up in the middle, between the two lanes, which Linda says is "dangerous, because when you drive down, you have to drive on the opposite side of the street to avoid you know, messing up the car."
Phil Vigo, who has lived there for 18 years, explains when that happens "people keep hitting stuff, and then the cars veer off and crash into other cars."
Even worse, might be the holes on the sides of the road, which residents say flood every time there is a storm, and take forever to drain.
When News 12 cameras were there, it had been 17 days since the last measurable rainfall in the Bronx, but our crew still measured 5 inches of standing water.
Vigo says this is more than just a parking nuisance, but also leads to smells, mosquitoes, and a health issue, since "there's a lot of elderly people in the building that get sick passing by, smelling the garbage, the sewers from them not doing no work."
Both residents we talked to said they and their neighbors have filed multiple complaints, and the city's 311 website says that all have been closed, and should have been fixed by now.
With the problems still clearly there, Linda says "it makes me feel like we're neglected, because they keep doing the main streets, and they're not doing the smaller streets."
Vigo adds that he feels "our tax money's being wasted."
The City Department of Transportation tells News 12 that it is aware of the issues on the block, and that work to fix them is ongoing, but did not provide any timeline.