This agency is still out of line!
Department of Transportation workers returned to Coney Island to paint a straight pair of double-yellow lines dividing traffic on a stretch of Neptune Avenue — but did not fully erase the decidedly not straight set previously painted there, and must return to remove the still visible squiggles from the pavement, the local councilman demanded.
“Maintaining streets and roads is as basic as it gets in local governance,” said Mark Treyger. “DOT said this would be fixed. If it’s not done right, if it’s more sloppy work, come back and do it again.”
Transportation Department workers on Dec. 7 finished drawing the straight lines to divide Neptune Avenue between West 33rd and 37th streets, days after this newspaper published its report exposing their squiggly predecessors to the world, and more than a week after Treyger first blasted transit bigwigs for the slapdash job he called “an embarrasment to the city.”
But the original squiggly lines — which were only temporary markings, according to agency reps, who blamed their nonlinear shape on bad weather — are still faintly visible on the four-block stretch, because workers painted the new straight lines a few inches away from them.
It is common for temporary markings such as the original squiggles to remain visible even after workers lay down permanent markings, according to an agency spokeswoman, who said the curvaceous pair will fade with the weather and the wear-and-tear of traffic, and that scraping them off would ruin the roadway.
The spokeswoman, however, did not specifically reply to questions about why workers did not paint over the temporary markings, and other reps never answered questions about when work on that stretch of Neptune Avenue began, how exactly weather could affect the temporary markings, and what company the agency contracted to do the work.
And Treyger said that no explanation should excuse transportation leaders from simply getting the job done correctly.
“Do it right,” he said. “Our community deserves nothing less.”
