 Borough President Vito Fossella joined members of Community Board 2 and residents of the Travis community at the corner of Victory Boulevard nd Travis Avenue to oppose a project to lift the marshland section of the Travis Avenue Roadway.
"We're not opposed to improving the road conditions, our concern that we raised was how long is this project going to take?" said Borough President Fossella at a press conference at the site. In response to plans by the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the busy throughway that connects the West Shore to the rest of Staten Island could take as long as 18 months to up to two years to complete. "Our initial reaction was that's nuts," he added. "We can't shut this road for almost two years." Shutting down this vital section of Travis Avenue will greatly disrupt the lives of the residents of the Travis community, Mid-Island Little League, the football league, anyone who works along South Avenue, the Hilton, anyone trying to cross from the south shore to South Ave., are amongst some of the concerns. This heavily traveled road has approximately 40,000 cars a week traveling in both directions. That's a lot of cars and residents that will have their lives disrupted each week to navigate their way away from and around this closed stretch of Travis Ave. Another major cause of concern is the response time by FDNY Squad 8, located on Victory Boulevard approximately one block away from Travis Ave. With already stressed response times, if this roadway is closed for two years, their response time will double. Without the ability to quickly navigate down Travis Ave. to New Springville, they will be forced to travel up to Signs Road and loop around, resulting in even longer response times that could mean the difference between life and death. "In good conscience, I cannot stand here and say that we should support the closure of this roadway for almost two years," said Borough President Fossella. Comments are closed.
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