WPCNR BUMPER TO BUMPER By John F. Bailey. January 11, 2007, UPDATED 12:16 PM EST: Nicholas Choubah, Regional Structures Supervisor for the Department of Transportation promised the North Broadway Civic Association tonight a role in planning how the devastated Cross Westchester Expressway- Central Westchester Parkway-Grant Avenue, Ebersole Rink corridor will be reforested after construction of the entrance and exit at Exits 7 Westbound and Exit 8 Eastbound is completed.
It was also disclosed to WPCNR by Mark Triano of the DOT that the work once completed had no built-in adaptibility to any possible Tappan Zee Bridge, Cross Westchester Expressway expansion to include light rail, it would all have to be done again to fit Tappan Zee expansion plans for the Cross Westchester corridor.
“Deforestation” of Exit 7-8 Northside of I-287. WPCNR believes this is adjacent the Ebersole Ice Rink. DOT promises landscaping will begin 2009. North Broadway Civic Association was promised a role in contributing to the relandscaping with a preliminary plan tentatively promised for their review within two months.
Photo by Don Hughes for WPCNR
Adam Bradley, Assemblyman of the 89th District, brought Nicholas Chouba, center and Mark Triano of the New York State Department of Transportation to address the devastation of the North Broadway corridor above the DOT I-287 Construction. Photo, WPCNR News
State Assemblyman Adam Bradley facilitated the meeting between residents shocked at the naked earth surrounding both banks adjacent I-287, where there used to be trees, forest and cliffs and the DOT. A DOT official agreed that within two months he’d ask a DOT landscape design team for a preliminary plan, which the North Broadway Citizens Association would be given the opportunity to review.
At first Choubah and Mark Triano of the DOT said residents would not see a plan for landscaping the area surrounding the Cross Westchester Expressway West and Eastbound in the vicinity of Ebersole Rink until September of 2009. Choubah said about $500,000 to $800,000 would be earmarked for replanting the slopes now bare of trees which were “deforested” by construction of the aerial-visible Tennessee Valley gas pipeline and the new entrance and exit ramp construction undertaken by the DOT. Assemblyman Bradley said that it was not a matter of money, but rather what the final project would look like that would determine the landscaping plan. He insisted the residents be given input in how their neighborhood would be restored.
Gutted Cliff at Entrance to I-287 Eastbound off North Broadway.
Dec. 24 Photo by Don Hughes for WPCNR
Choubah said the DOT procedure in the past is to complete the project then commission an outside landscape contractor to relandscape the bare slopes. When Terry Conroy stood up and asked incredulously that the DOT honestly had no idea how they would relandscape the area when they have construction-designed every other aspect of the project, Mr. Choubah changed his tune and agreed to go back to the DOT and ask permission to have the DOT design department develop a preliminary plan.
Adam Bradley mediated between the two sides, and asked residents to call his office and report their concerns as the relandscaping plan developed.
Residents described the construction as a “deforestation.” Part of this, Choubah blamed on the Tennessee Valley Authority relocation of their gas pipeline which, in order to be visible from the air, he said, had to clear the area surrounding the new pipeline route. Joseph Nicoletti, White Plains Commissioner of Public Works, commented that the Tennessee Valley Authority, the pipeline company, had told him they planned to replant the area around the pipeline right of way with shrubbery.
Choubah committed to a preliminary landscape plan within “a couple of months,” provided he got permission.
View of North Broadway Neighborhood looking South at the Entrance to I-287 Eastbound.
Dec. 24 Photo by Don Hughes for WPCNR
Citizens, numbering about 40, (including six Common Councilmembers, Mr. Bradley, and County Legislator Bill Ryan), said that a number of mature trees had been cut down, and replacing them with saplings and small shrubs would not compensate. Choubah said it has been the DOT experience that large trees did not plant well in relandscaping projects of the past.
What came out of the meeting was a commitment by Choubah to neighborhood involvement and approval of reforestation efforts, but that the area would remain in its defoiliated state for at least two and a half years, the relandscaping not expected to begin until fall of 2009.
Mark Triano, Mr. Choubah’s construction manager for the project told WPCNR after the meeting that the Exit sequence when completed would eliminate the weaving pattern of westbound traffic exiting across entering traffic at the entrance to I-287 at the city’ s eastern gateway.
The offending Entrance/Exit Combination began construction last September with this ghastly traffic pattern first pointed out by WPCNR. Photo, WPCNR News Archive
