Ariola asks how road redesigns affect emergency access in Rockaway
Ariola says road designs in Rockaway have changed without notifying firehouses and EMS stations, citing an ambulance station 11 minutes from Scholars Academy and delays reaching emergencies. Maiano says ambulances are dynamic and deployed on cross streets rather than fixed stations, while Sirocco says FDNY works with DOT and local units to review road changes for apparatus access.
The council member brought up the difference is in the road designs over the last number of years.
So in Rockaway, there is an ambulance station 11 minutes away by a regular car ride to the Scholars Academy.
It's a middle school and a high school.
Emergency vehicles often get delayed in the area because of road design that has occurred without notification.
to the firehouses, to the EMS stations, and how much of an impact does that have on you being able to reach a fire or someone who's sick
when you're getting there and all of a sudden the road has been reconfigured and you can no longer go down that road?
So differently than how the fire responds, ambulances don't stay at one location, like the ambulance station.
Those 10 ambulances that come out of the rockways out of every station are deployed on cross streets throughout the city.
So they're more dynamic in their response, and they also can respond from anywhere when they get the call, not just from the ambulance station.
So as far as fire response, I'll turn it over to Chief Sirocco.
Regarding that, we work with DOT all the time with our city planning people.
So any road design changes are cleared to them and it's disseminated to the units.
And they actually, those units will actually go out and make sure those road designs
can handle the apparatus.
Sometimes they change a turn where an apparatus can't negotiate the turn.
So we do pretty well with our partners in DOT to make sure that we're aware of any road changes that would affect our response.
So you don't feel that that affects response times in areas like Long Island City or Astoria or any of the places where they have a lot of open streets?
Well, I would say that any road design change could have, you know, depending on how they're designed, could cause some congestion.
But as far as response times in those incidents, I can't quantify those.
But I would say that, you know, again, we work with DOT all the time concerning these things.
You know, we don't have the data on how much it slows down our response times, but overall, I think throughout the city, congestion has become somewhat of a problem for us.
But, you know, we continue to work and move forward and try to, you know, do as good a job with DOT and their needs.
And the needs of the public in order to safely respond on a timely manner.