January 27, 2007: Vol. 30, No. 4
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del.icio.usKensington residents are begging for help to get rid of the 18-wheelers roaring down their supposed-to-be-quiet streets — but elected officials aren’t listening.
Residents of Caton Avenue, which narrows down to one lane in each direction between McDonald Avenue and Linden Boulevard, are asking that their street be undesignated as an official city truck route.
“This is not a commercial street,” said Gina Duclayan, who lives at the corner of Caton and East Fourth Street. “There are a lot of children here.”
Duclayan, who has lived in trucker central for three years, says that the street is meant to only be a truck route for local deliveries — yet 18-wheelers are using it as a shortcut that intersects several busier truck routes nearby.
And the outlaw rigs are rarely ticketed.
“They do virtually no enforcement of the trucking regulations,” said Duclayan.
Her neighbor, Tim Molloy, agreed: “It’s totally out of control. I’ve been complaining about it for four years.”
Neighbors are hoping the NYPD will add a truck enforcement unit at Caton and McDonald avenues to bust rigs.
The fines wouldn’t be cheap. Drivers who get caught off a designated truck route twice get slapped with a fine of $500, and a third offense doubles the penalty to $1,000.
The fines were raised in 2003 after the Department of Transportation noticed that drivers weren’t deterred by the existing $50 penalty.
City Councilman Bill DeBlasio (D–Park Slope) said his office would try to help get those rules enforced.
But matters seem to be getting worse, not better. A bike lane was recently added to the street, despite the wide tractor-trailers. Two children riding their bicycles were recently sideswiped, though not seriously hurt, neighbors said.
“It’s going to be really bad one day,” Molloy said.
©2007 The Brooklyn Paper
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