Perfect Timing for Sewer Upgrade has Storeowners Livid

For weeks now Albany Avenue has been a nightmare for vehicular traffic, and yesterday it just got a whole lot worse. This week leading up to Pesach is the busiest one of the year for storeowners, who now have to deal with the construction that is taking up every parking spot on the block, and the impossible traffic it’s creating.

In the last few days notices were given out to houses in the vicinity alerting them to the “Emergency Sewer Reconstruction” which is taking place due to a blockage and causing sewer backups. A number of weeks ago the Department of Environmental Protection cut open the sewer pipes and temporarily alleviated the blockage with plans to perform a complete system upgrade in the coming days.

Resident Engineer for the DEP Smarck Salomon told CrownHeights.info “alleviating the blockage was a priority, while the actual upgrade does not get the highest priority” adding that they were called away to another priority and after receiving tens of complaints from angry store owners they returned and tried to straighten the issues out.

“This is infuriating, where are our customers supposed to park? How are they even going to get to our stores if the streets are closed? And this on our busiest week of the year” said one impassioned store owner. Complaints were lodged with 311, the Office of the Mayor and the DEP all of whom did absolutely nothing to resolve the issue.

“We even tried calling the Community Council who said that there is nothing they can do” said the shopkeeper, who asked “did you even know this was going to happen? And they simply answered no. So this our representation.”

The only help seemed to come from Mr. Salomon, the DEP engineer, who promised to keep traffic open as much as possible, and to have as many parking spots available for the coming days.