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By Will Bredderman
Brooklyn Daily
The city ran roughshod over 92nd Street for nearly a year, but now it’s finally trying to smooth things over.
The Department of Transportation agreed to repave the block between Ridge Boulevard and Third Avenue where a sinkhole opened last June. The news comes just weeks after the Department of Environmental Preservation said it would refuse to repair the damage their construction trucks had done.
Residents complained for months that the heavy vehicles used to fill the sinkhole, and repair the collapsed sewer line that caused it, left the roadway looking — and riding — like the surface of the moon. But when the Department of Environmental Preservation finished the project last month, it refused to resurface anything but the very center strip of the street — much to the chagrin of residents.
Councilman Vincent Gentile (D-Bay Ridge) said the people on the block had put up with enough already. He took credit for convincing the city to finish the job — and repave all the way to Shore Road.
“These hard-working taxpayers deserve to have their street refurbished entirely after what they’ve had to deal with for the past year,” the pol said.
After paying thousand of dollars to replace the shocks in her cars from a year of driving over the broken asphalt, 92nd Street resident Denise Vento said she was relieved to learn she would be able to ride peacefully. However, she was upset the city didn’t repave earlier.
“It’ll be nice to have the block back. It’s the way they should have done it from the beginning,” said Vento.
The Department of Transportation said the work would begin in spring or summer 2014.
Reach reporter Will Bredderman at wbredderman@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4507. Follow him at twitter.com/WillBredderman.