By Roz Liston
City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside) has declared war on the pigeons that have been leaving their droppings at three stops on the No. 7 line between 46th and 61st streets.
Straphangers using these stations have confronted the pigeon poop problem for decades.
Van Bramer announced the installation of a so-called pigeon mitigation systems, which should protect riders passing through these stations from being hit by droppings.
“Pigeon poop isn’t a joke,” Van Bramer said last week at a news conference in the blighted area, where the droppings have defaced the interior of the stations and the entrances. “It makes our neighborhood look unattractive and it is also a health hazard.”
The stations fighting the problem are the 46th Street-Bliss Street, 52nd Street-Lincoln Avenue and the 61st Street-Woodside stops, the latter of which connects with the Long Island Rail Road.
The new $250,000 systems have several features to deter the pigeons, which perch on top of the stations and often fly around inside before landing high up in the metal beams:
• add new wiring and netting around station entrances
• install nylon spikes and angled edges to ledges
• install ultrasonic devices to emit hawk sounds to deter the pigeons, which cannot be heard by the human ear
