Councilmember Aldebol questions on mall entrance traffic and mitigation
Aldebol raises concerns about the problematic Hutchinson River Parkway entrance to the mall obstructing traffic, including emergency vehicles, compounded by Bally's Casino construction and PepsiCo trucks. Jarboe and Klein explain their proposed Lafayette Avenue traffic remediation plan was blocked by DOT's bike lane proposal, but they remain open to revisiting it if the bike plan falls through.
market chains.
And the
So the blood center, everything on that side of the mall are going to remain there.
Is that correct?
Yes, any supermarket, we're not looking to obviously lose any existing tenants.
As we said, this issue became at the forefront before the blood center took over the party city space.
And then we realized that you really need to plan in the future.
So, you know, any new supermarket or expansion to accommodate,
you know, additional floor area would involve, you know, relocating, potentially relocating other tenants within the center and, again, waiting until there was a suitable space available.
And with respect to the entrance to the mall on the Hutchinson River Parkway side that leads to the Whitestone Bridge,
That's a problematic entrance.
And if you have more traffic, I mean, Lafayette Avenue gets clogged whenever there's a problem on the Whitestone Bridge.
And it's taken me sometimes 45 minutes to get from East Tree Mount down Lafayette Avenue to get to the mall.
Which should be like a five-minute drive.
So that's a huge concern for people who are commuting from the school, taking the bus into Queens.
There's a lot going on there.
And then adding, you know, Bally's Casino doing construction there.
You also have the PepsiCo trucks coming in and out.
So it's just it's a little concerning to me that there's an entrance there to the mall that.
Obstructs the traffic even further.
And, you know, it's not just about traffic as being a nuisance, but, you know, fire, you know, fire trucks, ambulances, you know, emergency vehicles cannot get through there.
So what is, I mean, do you have plans to mitigate that situation?
So a couple of things.
One is, you know, as you know, there is a difference in grade on the site.
So we can't get cars to the upper level from Brush Avenue because there's a significant difference in grade.
As indicated, we have been meeting and did meet with the DOT.
We were trying to open up some better circulation along Lafayette Avenue.
And we were actually surprised to hear about their bike lane proposed there because the community had previously indicated opposition, I believe, to that plan.
So that has not been finalized.
It hasn't even been presented to the community yet.
So, you know, hopefully with Valley's coming and with these concerns,