44°
MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. Hutchinson Boulevard resident Paul Harrison said he has been trying to get the city to fix the sidewalk across the street from his house for four years with no luck.
The black concrete sidewalk is cracked and in some cases has roots growing out of it adding that there is poison ivy growing on the fence next to it, too. Harrison said that the chain fence that separates the sidewalk from the Hutchinson River usually has branches covering it that also blocks part of the sidewalk, though the city did clean up some of the branches on Thursday morning.
Its basically falling apart, Harrison said. Three years ago the state told me theyd fix it but they let it rot. We have a very curvy street and with the trees there, too, you cant see around the curves. Its very dangerous and most of the time you have to walk on the grass.
Harrisons other issue with the road is that it is between two exits on the Hutchinson River Parkway. When the Hutch gets backed up, Harrison said that drivers use his street as an alternative. Harrison said that cars will go 60 miles per hour around blind curves when the road is not busy but when it gets busy the traffic comes to a standstill in front of his house.
It takes me 30 minutes to get out of my driveway some days, Harrison said.
City Councilman J. Yuhanna Edwards, who co-chairs the Public Works Committee on the City Council, said that the city has a list of a lot of sidewalks in Mount Vernon that need repair, adding that they want to prioritize the sidewalks in the city that are in the most dire need first.
We should be able to eradicate the poison ivy right away and are looking to put in speed humps in places in the city to get cars to slow down, Edwards said. There was a car on 10th Avenue a couple weeks ago that flipped because it was going too fast.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Mount Vernon and receive free news updates.
