DOT Faces Rough Treatment in the Bronx

Read the latest news on this issue.

After years of requests for help, and months of persistent and focused public pressure by Mothers on the Move, the DOT has finally taken concrete action to address the Hunts Point community's concerns over illegal truck traffic by installing a temporary median on Spofford Ave. The median is considered a victory for Hunts Point residents, but it is only the first step and has come at the cost of exhaustive campaign efforts on the part of the community. By its refusal to work in partnership with the community, the DOT has made itself look contrary and stubborn. Ideally, the DOT will learn from its embarrassing experience in Hunts Point and begin to work with, rather than against, the communities they serve. The choice is clearly up to the DOT. If they approach the community as a potential partner and ally, the rewards of good planning are theirs to reap. Conversely, if they an assume an adversarial relationship from the outset, they have nothing to gain but political pain and tough sledding.

The willingness of the police to work with the Hunts Point activists in this matter stands in stark contrast to the DOT's recalcitrance. The 41st precinct stepped up to the challenge of increased truck enforcement and has the numbers to prove it. Rather than treating the community's concerns as an attack, the police took it as an issue that was their their responsibility to address. Department of Transportation representatives need to be trained in community planning practices and the DOT as a whole should try out different kinds of collaborative planning in various neighborhoods. T.A. has already pointed the way with Safe Routes to School in the Bronx and the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project. Until then, DOT officials will continue to find themselves in situations like the one in Hunts Point in late December, when a group of concerned parents and residents marched on DOT Bronx Borough Commissioner Kilkenny's office, declaring him the "Grinch that stole our safe streets."