Brooklyn is finally seeing temperatures climb into the 20s after a stretch of bitter cold, but the slight warmup has done little to melt the ice still covering so many streets. <\/p>\n
Abbe Bershatsky, a Gravesend resident, says she believes those icy conditions are keeping many disabled and elderly residents trapped inside.<\/p>\n
She says the past two weeks have been full of risks. <\/p>\n
Her main source of transportation, a mobile scooter, has had issues on the icy and snow-filled crosswalks in her neighborhood. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy doctor’s around the corner,\u201d said Bershatsky. \u201cJust one block away, but I had to miss two injections because I couldn’t get over there. I couldn’t get Access-a-Ride because I couldn’t get out of the driveway. You have to meet them at the curb.\u201d <\/p>\n
Last week, she attempted to run some errands close to home but instead, found herself in the road \u2013 falling over her scooter and injuring herself. Remnants of the fall can still be seen in her eye. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou can’t go on the side because of the snow,\u201d said Bershatsky. \u201cYou have to go right down the middle with cars coming both ways, and that’s really terrifying. But that\u2019s the only way to get around.\u201d <\/p>\n
Bershatsky says icy and impassable crosswalks are not just an inconvenience, but a sign of negligence by both the city and nearby property owners. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe city should be ticketing people who don’t clear fully or don’t clear at all,\u201d said Bershatsky. “I think it’s their responsibility to do the crossings and they should do them. You could walk but what about all the people, baby carriages, walkers, wheelchairs, scooters. Why should we be prisoners?\u201d <\/p>\n
Since the Jan. 25 storm, DSNY says they have issued 953 summonses in Brooklyn. <\/p>\n
Property owners are required to clear a path in the sidewalk at least four feet wide to allow pedestrians to pass. Snow and ice must be removed from around fire hydrants, sidewalk curb-cuts, ramps and bus stops. However, knowing that many property owners fail to do so, DSNY has stepped in to shovel tens of thousands of crosswalks, bus stops, etc.<\/p>\n
While conditions have slowly gotten better as the days progress, she still finds herself paying for car services to travel as close as two blocks away. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s her new normal – until all of the snow and ice is finally gone. <\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, I wish they would be good citizens,\u201d said Bershatsky. \u201cIt’s an affluent neighborhood. There\u2019s nobody here who I think couldn\u2019t afford to hire someone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brooklyn is finally seeing temperatures climb into the 20s after a stretch of bitter cold, but the slight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,474,55411,51144,9,24,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-128410","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-brooklyn","9":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","10":"tag-brooklyn-news","11":"tag-gravesend","12":"tag-homecrest","13":"tag-icy-conditions","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-nyc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}