White Plains Road continues to be plagued by street light outages as the evening darkness increases.
As of Tuesday night, multiple street lights along White Plains Road are out of order, which is creating a difficult and uncomfortable scenario for pedestrians and shoppers who use the strip on a daily basis.
The commercial corridor currently has at least seven street lights that are out of order, including the light at the northwest and southeast corners of White Plains Road and Maran Place, lights in front of 2158, 2180, 2181 and 2186 White Plains roads as well as the light at the southeast corner of Lydig and Cruger avenues.
Six of these seven street lights are within a two block radius.
The street light in front of 2181 White Plains Road, the location of BX Sports, a sports accessory store, has been out for three months, according to White Plains Road BID executive director Joe Thompson, who also mentioned that all of the street lights on White Plains Road from Maran Place to Pelham Parkway South service road are dim at best.
“This is a horrendous issue that has not been properly addressed,” Thompson said. “This is a commercial strip – and these street lights not working hurts the businesses in the area, especially during the holidays when shopping is at an annual high.”
“This is a safe neighborhood, probably one of the safest neighborhoods in the Bronx – and we need to keep it that way by having working lights, especially since it’s getting darker earlier and earlier, so that residents can travel safely while not having to worry about potential interactions in the dark with the homeless and panhandlers. We want to keep this area vibrant, and we can’t do so without proper street lighting.”
This isn’t the first time that the stretch of White Plains Road has seen this issue occur. Last year, two lights broke on Lydig and Brady avenues – both of which were eventually fixed.
In addition, many of the streets lights on Pelham Parkway North and South between White Plains and Williamsbridge roads had issues at the end of 2014 and beginning of 2015.
Around that time, many residents emailed Community Board 11 reporting Pelham Parkway as pitch black as early as 5 p.m.
According to Pelham Parkway Neighborhood Association president Edith Blitzer, however, the street lights on both sides of the Parkway have been working for at least the past three weeks, after the DOT conducted a study last month.
Thompson also touched on the situation on White Plains Road regarding broken and limited muni meters.
“Some of them (the parking meters) don’t work, and some of them only take credit cards,” Thompson said. “I’ve had individuals tell me they don’t feel completely comfortable with using their credit card on these machines because of security reasons, and I don’t blame them.”
