Community Board Urges Con Edison to End Delays on Local Infrastructure Projects
There are currently six major street rebuilding projects ongoing in Lower Manhattan, with a seventh about to begin. Among these excavations (at Nassau Street, Front Street, Greenwich Street, West Broadway, Vesey Street, and South Street, with Trinity Place starting soon) three are being delayed indefinitely because Con Edison has failed to send work crews to restore collapsed manholes, according to Community Board 1 (CB1). These streets cannot be rebuilt until multiple kinds of underground infrastructure (such as water pipes, power lines, and gas mains) have been updated, and this work cannot be completed before the manholes are restored because they provide the access points for service technicians.
At CB1’s February 27 monthly meeting, Pat Moore, who chairs the Board’s Quality of Life Committee, explained, “the projects on Nassau, Greenwich, and Vesey Streets are moving slowly because the City’s Department of Design and Construction,” which oversees street rebuilding, “can’t do anything until Con Ed comes and fixes the manholes.”
CB1 member Bruce Ehrmann observed, “Worth Street has been under reconstruction since the crane collapse eight years ago. My granddaughter, who’s in her late teens said, ‘I’ve never been to your house when there wasn’t construction outside.”
Ms. Moore introduced a resolution noting, “these projects are greatly impacting quality of life for residents, causing construction noise, construction vibrations, street closures, increased vehicular traffic, vehicular horn honking and impacts on pedestrian safety,” and, “Con Edison work is currently limiting the advancement or completion of several projects in Lower Manhattan.” The same measure concludes, “CB1 requests that Con Edison immediately prioritize these projects in Lower Manhattan to reduce delays in the street bed infrastructure projects operated by the Department of Design and Construction.”