Mayor Mamdani announced Friday that he’s ordered a “pothole blitz” to repair city streets — just four days after a 46-year-old was thrown from his electric scooter and killed when hitting a massive road crater in Queens, officials said.
Over 80 city Department of Transportation crews will be sent out starting Saturday at 6 a.m. to scour streets across the five boroughs and repair streets left pockmarked during the two powerful winter storms that hit the city this year.
“In a single day, they’ll fill thousands of potholes that pop up every year as spring arrives and our city streets begin to thaw,” Mamdani said in a statement. “Safe, accessible streets are a basic promise of city government, and after a historically brutal winter, I’m incredibly grateful to the DOT teams who are not wasting a moment of time in delivering the street improvements we need.”
On Monday, Jaikarran Seenarian died after his electric stand-up scooter hit a pothole on Liberty Ave. near 109th St. in Richmond Hill. He went flying off the scooter and struck his head on the asphalt after hitting the pothole, horrified witnesses told police. He died at the scene.
Seenarian had just exited the New Chinese Garden of Guyana on Liberty Ave., rolled down the street on his scooter and was on his way back when he hit the pothole, restaurant worker Orvena Persaud.
Jaikarran Seenarian (circled) is pictured moments before his electric stand-up scooter hit a pothole on Liberty Ave. near 109th St. in Richmond Hill. (Obtained by Daily News)
“It just happened so fast,” Persaud said. “When he dropped in the hole, he flip over. One of the customers left and go outside. When she got outside, she saw him lying down on the road so she screamed. When she screamed, everybody rush out.”
“His face was down,” she recalled of the victim. “When they turn him over, oh my God, he was already dead. His face was mashed.”
Arriving first responders tried to do CPR, but Seenarian died at the scene.
After the crash, emergency crews were dispatched to repair that section of Liberty Ave., officials said.
“They fix it just after the incident,” Persaud said. “It was too late because the guy was already dead.”
“That pothole was there all the time,” she said.
Rebecca White / New York Daily News
A large pothole was filled after a deadly accident at Liberty Ave between 109th Street and 110th Street on Monday. (Rebecca White / New York Daily News)
Videos taken at the scene show a five-foot long stretch of roadway that had recently been prepared. Witnesses said that area was once the massive crater that Seenarian struck.
Persaud said Seenarian had come into the restaurant to order some food.
On the night of his death, he had come in and asked for a beer, but was denied, Persaud said.
“He drink already, so I didn’t give him a beer,” she said.
An NYPD spokesman said there’s no indication that Seenarian was intoxicated before the crash. A City Department of Transportation spokesman Vincent Barone called the crash “a terrible tragedy.”
“He is a nice guy,” Persaud said about the scooter rider. “I know him for a few years.”
The city has been plagued with potholes formed during the massive back-to-back snowstorms and a record-breaking cold snap this year. Potholes form from repeated cycles of freezing and melting on the streets.
The DOT had filled more than 10,000 potholes “just this last week alone,” Barone said.
Since the start of the year, DOT has filled over 50,000 potholes, according to the mayor’s office.
“New Yorkers have braved a rough winter, and we can see and feel the resulting potholes from wear-and-tear on our roads,” DOT Commissioner Flynn said. “That’s why the men and women of NYC DOT are doubling down on repair efforts in recent weeks and will step it up this weekend with a five-borough, 80-crew blitz.”