STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Another New York City project meant to address Staten Island’s traffic woes is grinding locals’ gears.
A construction team from the New York City Department of Design and Construction presented plans Thursday night to the Richmondtown & Clarke Avenue Civic Association for a 1.5-mile widening of Arthur Kill Road through parts of Great Kills and Richmond.
What is a one-lane street in either direction from Richmond Avenue to Clarke Avenue will largely become two lanes on each side with 10-foot sidewalks along one side of Arthur Kill Road and a bike and pedestrian path on the other.
The city also plans to install medians throughout much of the project area, along with sewer and water main improvements.
The $70 million project has been in the works for decades. The city funded the project in 2015 under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, but several factors pushed back its start, including the coronavirus pandemic.
Wetlands in the area presented a particular challenge for planners at the Department of Design and Construction, who worked with the state Department of Environmental Conservation to reach an acceptable solution. Ultimately, the project will disturb about 2,200 square feet of tidal wetland but introduce about 5,000 square feet.
Brookfield Park, a former landfill, is home to many of those wetlands, and its prominence in the project sparked some of the most serious concerns from meeting attendees.
The city used the 130-acre Brookfield Landfill, bordered by Richmond Avenue, Arthur Kill Road and LaTourette Park, from 1966 to 1980. (Advance file photo)STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE
Several members of the audience asked what kind of testing would be done on air and soil quality throughout the project’s 3-year timeline, but Yogesh Ravanan, a consulting engineer who presented the Department of Design and Construction’s plans, said only monitoring of a typical project would be done for this street redesign.
Ravanan and a representative from the Department of Environmental Conservation attempted to ease meeting attendees’ health concerns, but to little effect. They said that most of the dumping had been done further into the Brookfield geography, but longtime residents at the meeting said they remembered dumping up to the modern fence that abuts Arthur Kill Road.
The age of many of those longtime residents also raised a glaring concern about the sidewalk installation along Arthur Kill Road’s residential properties. In New York City, property owners are responsible for the maintenance of the sidewalks outside their property, including snow shoveling.
John Felicetti, 77, said he was one of those property owners and among the youngest of his neighbors.
“This is an aging community with people that are in their 70s, 80s and approaching 90,” he said. “And if you’re going to expect them to be responsible to clear sidewalks. I think you’re kidding yourself.”
Ravanan conceded that Felicetti raised a “valid point” about the new responsibility for residents but made clear that there was little he or his team could do. Concerns like those were instead the responsibility of the design team, and Ravanan’s group was only there to share information about the construction of the project.
Some residents in attendance raised concerns regarding a long-dormant project dating back more than five decades.
In 1975, city officials pushed a project called the “Richmond Loop” that would have diverted traffic around Historic Richmond Town through street improvements in the surrounding community.
A March 9, 1975 article shows some of the Advance’s earliest reporting on the Richmond Town Loop.(Advance file)
Government officials at the event, including a representative from the city Department of Transportation, did their best to make clear the loop project was not on the table.