“We have seen trucks barreling through, landing on our lawns,” said Delphine Caternicchio, who lives along the southbound…
By Alexander Dworkowitz
Accidents, noise and pollution plague a section of Whitestone Expressway near Cross Island Parkway, but any remedy appears far off.
“We have seen trucks barreling through, landing on our lawns,” said Delphine Caternicchio, who lives along the southbound expressway service road between 11th and 14th avenues. “Most of them originate on the highway, but they come through the fence to the service road.”
Caternicchio was describing traffic converging from the Cross Island Parkway into the expressway’s southbound lanes at a point where about 15 houses sit. A chain link fence and short metal divider separate the congested roadway from the service road a few feet away, but she said cars on the expressway often drive through the fence and onto the service road.
“At the present time, about every week and a half someone will go through that fence,” said Dot Newton, office manager of state Sen. Frank Padavan’s (R-Bellerose) Whitestone office.
Statistics on the number of accidents that have occurred at the site were not available from city agencies at press time.
“We’ve had various meetings,” said Marilyn Bitterman, district manager of Community Board 7, which covers Whitestone. “We’re concerned with a lot of things there. The whole highway has to be realigned.”
Bitterman speculated that many of the accidents were caused by cars trying to quickly cut right to reach the 20th Avenue exit.
But she acknowledged that finding the money to realign the highway was difficult, and Newton said that any attempt to change the highway seemed impossible.
“I don’t know how much redesign they can do,” she said.
Another possible solution is to install a sturdier barrier that would suppress noise and prevent vehicles from cutting across to the service road, something that Padavan proposed to the state Department of Transportation several years ago.
“It was approved by the state DOT,” said Newton. “It went into the budget. But it was so costly that it was just knocked out.”
Faced with two possibilities that proved too expensive, the DOT approved a new proposal to install a green plastic fence along the southbound expressway and service road from the 14th Avenue exit to the avenue itself.
“It will hopefully reduce some of the noise,” said Bitterman. “Cars may bend the wall, but they won’t wind up on the service road as often as they do.”
Newton was also hopeful about the planned fence.
“I think it will help a little bit with the noise and also with the pollution,” she said.
But installation of the fence has not begun, and the attack on the World Trade Center may have postponed the project.
“Some of our construction work has been halted because of the World Trade Center,” said Jennifer Nelson, a DOT spokeswoman.
Nelson said she was not sure if and when the installation of the fence would begin.
Reach Reporter Alexander Dworkowitz by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300 Ext. 141.
