The muck conveyance system at 72nd Street is designed to reduce dust in the air due to subway construction. (Photo courtesy of The Launch Box)
It’s getting dusty up in here, Second Ave. residents and business owners have said to the MTA. With non-stop subway construction moving ever southward along the busy commercial strip, those who have lived through four years of noise and still have a few more to go say the air is dustier than ever, and now East Side politicians want some answers from the MTA.
“The Second Avenue Subway will one day benefit all New Yorkers, but right now the construction of the new line is putting a heavy burden on merchants and residents near Second Avenue,” Representative Carolyn Maloney said over the weekend. “The MTA must redouble its efforts to minimize dust and foul odors emanating from the construction site – and take steps to assure the public that the air is safe to breathe. Chairman Walder takes quality-of-life concerns seriously and I know that those who live and work near Second Avenue would be grateful for his attention to these important concerns.”
The story broke late last week in a brief item in The Post. Locals were complaining that the air near key construction sites had become dangerously dusty. “I’ve been in some bad military situations, and it’s not as bad as that,” Ralph Leviton, an Upper East Sider, said.
The MTA admitted that project managers were testing the air and noted that mitigation efforts — including the construction of some dust-reducing conveyors were underway. Still, dust levels were above normal. “Over the past four weeks there have been instances where the reading has exceeded the established threshold for 15 minutes or less on a given day,” an authority spokesman said to DNA Info. “Going forward we are assigning additional supervision to ensure that the dust is thoroughly hosed down and we will continue to closely monitor the site.”
This weekend, area politicians asked the MTA to respond to these complaints and better test and clean up the air. In a letter to Jay Walder, Rep. Maloney pushed for more attention to the issue: “I urge you to conduct — or, if you are already conducting, redouble — air-quality testing in and around the construction zone along Second Avenue and East 69th and 70th Streets to make sure that the construction is not exposing area residents to environmental hazards. In addition, I hope you will explore the feasibility of periodically spraying the construction area to suppress the dust or taking other measures to minimize the impact of construction dust and odors on the neighborhood.”
Other local voices joined in with her calls. “The dust storms created by the subway construction make Second Avenue seem like the badlands of Texas,” Assembly Member Micah Kellner said. “This isn’t a matter to be taken lightly; asthma and allergies are at their peak during the summer months. This dust is only adding to those health concerns. We need to hold the MTA accountable so that East Siders have breathable air.”
It is apparently tough work building a subway through a densely-populated residential neighborhood, and the MTA is learning the hard way about the side effects of subway construction. When — or if — this project reaches Phase II or beyond, the authority should at least have a set of best practices off of which it can work to minimize neighborhood impact. After all, no one likes dust or debris, but everyone wants a new subway line.
11 comments
When the developers built and the people moved in around the construction zone, did they not know that there were decades-old plans to dig a subway on Second Avenue?
Like the old adage goes, “You can’t make omelets without breaking eggs”.
Why not use prison labor from the war on drugs to hand dig the subway 1904 style?
Pete,
To give your cheeky remark a semi-serious response: Ignoring the practical problems of building a non-cut and cover deep ADA-compliant line, the reason why NY has no penal labor, even for things as simple as highway clean-up, is the power of the unions in Albany.
Digging by penal-labor-hand would be to have a cut and cover in the first place. No point in taking the subway for less than 3 stations, if it takes 8 minutes just to get to the platform from the sidewalk, ala 63rd street.
Because using
slaveprison labor gives the powers that be a greater incentive toadd more slaveslock more people up.Alon,
Sadly our approach to societal safety (warehousing a large portion of the young men from the potentially criminal classes from 18-35) and voter’s approval for this inefficient method, is incentive enough. We might as well get some labor out of it.
It’s not really a sad thing. It’s something that the privatized prison industry continuously lobbies for, as a way to get more slave labor; the power it has over politicians in states with privatized prisons dwarfs that of correctional officers’ unions. It’s the capitalist equivalent of Chinese forced labor camps.
Crackheads who possibly never worked and who don’t have good job skills are going to build a subway that works? You do realize subway construction is dangerous and one has to move area utilities, and work around buildings? Criminals, especially if they have mental issues, could even deliberately do things to damage area infastructure or building foundations. Not a good idea.
It’s easy for those of us not living next to the construction sites to high-handedly talk about omelettes and eggs. Living next to a project like this *sucks*, between the noise, dust, vibration, bright lights, odd-hours emergency fixes…Yes, it’s for the good of the city, and for the good of the people living along it now. But let’s not try to pretend that life along Second Ave on the UES is sunshine and roses right now. Have a little sympathy.
[…] complaints over construction dust and debris fill the air along Second Ave., the MTA has asked Upper East Siders for help. With the current […]