The city is finally going to shore up the Shore Road Promenade.
The Parks Department plans to fill in slew of sinkholes that keep appearing on the promenade’s bike path in Bay Ridge, and locals say the fix couldn’t come soon enough.
“The promenade is collapsing — it’s frightening,” said Community Board 10’s district manager Josephine Beckmann.
One cyclist said the holes once sent him head over handlebars.
“I was rubbing my eyes for not even two seconds, I hit the pothole, and that was it — I tumbled into a gate,” said Ridge cyclist Emanuel Giardina, who took a spill in one chasm on Oct. 19, cutting his hand. “It’s amazing that they don’t do anything about.”
The city last filled the fissures in 2007 when the situation was deemed an emergency, according to the Parks Department’s website. The project cost $9 million, Beckmann said.
But the sinkholes, some as much as a foot deep, have come back — 27 of them by Beckmann’s count. The resurgence is likely due to a deeper problem — the promenade’s aging bulkhead, which took a serious hit during Hurricane Sandy, Beckmann said.
“There has to be a relationship between Sandy and these cave-ins,” she said.
The potholes are so pervasive that fixing the promenade topped the community board’s list of capital budget priorities and requests for the 2016 fiscal year.
Several city agencies are now coming together to fix the underlying issue, according to a Parks spokeswoman.
“Parks engineers are working with the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Transportation to explore the necessary steps to resolve the issue of sink holes on Shore Road,” said Parks spokeswoman Meghan Lalor.
Meanwhile, cyclists are missing the Promenade’s breathtaking views to stave off road rash, said Giardina.
“We’ve got the best scenery and you can’t enjoy it, because the road is all potholed,” he said.
