A long damaged stretch of New Utrecht Avenue will be fully rehabilitated by the city, thanks to community support to fully fund the $24 million job, reported The Brooklyn Paper. The avenue is notorious for its cracked pavement, badly painted crosswalks and faded road lines.
“A street in Manhattan in this state of repair just wouldn’t happen. They wouldn’t allow it. So I said, ‘Why is the city allowing this to happen on New Utrecht Avenue?’” local council member Justin Brannan said. “This areas just been untouched, you’ve got the elevated train there. It just needs a lot of work so I’m happy that they’re finally paying attention to it.”
According to Vin Barone, a DOT spokesperson, the avenue could not be fixed with milling and paving alone, thus a more extensive capital redesign was proposed. It also found the state of the streets to be dangerous for all travelers, whether they were driving, biking or walking. And, according to Crashmapper, New Utrecht Avenue between from 65th to 77th streets has seen 69 crash incidents in the last five years, with 80 injuries total.
“I don’t think we pay enough attention to our aging infrastructure, it’s not the sexiest thing to fix pipes under the streets or fix a broken road but I think we need to pay attention to it,” Brannan said.
“This is the type of thing that people walk to work or their riding their bike or driving their car and it looks like hell. They pay a lot of taxes and they feel that it shouldn’t look this way and they’re not wrong.”
While the initial start year for construction is currently set for 2026, Brannan and other local officials are pushing to get construction started sooner.
“It’s ready to go, all that’s left to do is the work,” he said. “Now that we got the money, it’s just a matter of making sure the plans are finished and then just starting.”
