The area surrounding the Morris Park Esplanade subway station will be a whole lot cleaner within the next few months, it was announced.
According to Community Board 11, the NYC Department of Transportation has informed the board that alternate side parking signs will be installed within 90 days, per an email that was sent by the agency last week.
Alternate side parking is set to take place on Tuesdays from 8:30 to 10 a.m. on Esplanade Avenue from Paulding Avenue to the end of the Woodmansten Place steps, next to the Morris Park #5 IRT subway station.
Back in October, CB 11 passed a motion to enforce alternate side parking at the problematic location to solve two primary issues – littering and the storing of vehicles along the strip.
The new plan is expected to alleviate both situations.
According to DOT parking regulations, a vehicle cannot be parked for more than one week at the same location, with or without alternate side parking in effect, or it is considered a stored vehicle. After a week, the vehicle is subject to being towed.
The 49th Precinct keeps a log of how long vehicles have been parked on Esplanade Avenue. If they see that a car is parked in the same spot for a week or longer, they will schedule to have that vehicle towed.
Another sanitation issue involves street debris, which the board feels is being generated by the people that frequent the area by car and use the surrounding streets as a dumping ground.
According to the NYC Department of Sanitation, alternate side parking is not yet in effect in this area, as DOS is still working with the DOT to implement street cleaning regulation and install alternate side parking street signs on that stretch of Esplanade Avenue.
“This has been an ongoing battle for the past ten years,” said Tommy Salera, an Esplanade Avenue resident. “Streets along the Grand Concourse and neighborhoods in the west Bronx have alternate side parking four days a week and their streets are always clean. Why do I have to walk out of my house to look at a littered and garbage-filled street?”
CB 11 has received numerous complaints from residents concerning both littering and car storage.
“There’s no silver bullet for this scenario – but it will certainly help correct both issues,” said Jeremy Warneke, district manager of CB11.
Warneke also described another trash clogging situation – backed up catch basins.
Some of them overflow during heavy rains because of the amount of garbage flowing into them. One example of the flooding occurs a few blocks north of the train station, on Pelham Parkway South and Haight Avenue. The catch basins in that area frequently back up due to the large volume of litter and debris clogging the sewer line.The flooding problem is most evident on the Pelham Parkway South service road.
