Jan. 25, 2016 By Michael Florio
Mayor Bill de Blasio visited western Queens Monday morning following statements that he was not satisfied with cleanup efforts here during Winter Storm Jonas.
During a press conference on Sunday, the Mayor said that the City did not do a good enough job clearing the streets in Queens, mentioning the neighborhoods of Sunnyside, Woodside, Jackson Heights, East Elmhurst and Corona by name.
Although he called the Department of Sanitation’s response “outstanding” overall, and commended the agency for diverting extra equipment to Queens today, he said, “we’ve got more work to do.”
“I’m certainly not satisfied with the condition of some of the roads in some of our neighborhoods in Queens,” he said. “If I’m living in the [Queens] neighborhoods I mentioned… I’m not going to be happy this morning.”
De Blasio spent Monday morning touring Sunnyside and Woodside with Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer “to ensure additional resources and snow plows were being assigned to [this area] to address hazardous conditions,” according a release from Van Bramer’s office.
“Since the storm hit, my office has been coordinating with the Administration to ensure all of the residential streets of Western Queens are cleared appropriately,” the Councilman said in a statement. “Following the tour with the Mayor this morning, I continued walking around the district speaking with constituents and seeing conditions firsthand around the Big Six and other areas of Sunnyside, Astoria, Long Island City and Woodside. It is obvious to me that our neighborhoods need more resources to get every residential street, sidewalk and bus shelter cleared.”
“My office will continue monitoring neighborhoods throughout the district and advocating on behalf of my constituents to make sure conditions are safe for commuters, students and seniors. While there are specific areas of my district that still need to be addressed with more plowing, I appreciate the Administration being responsive,” Van Bramer continued.
Other local politicians took the Mayor to task for the storm response in Queens over the weekend.
“We were clearly left behind by the Administration, and this is very frustrating,” State Sen. Jose Peralta said in a statement released Monday morning.
Peralta’s district includes Jackson Heights, which saw a tri-state area record high of 34 inches, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“The City’s street plowing response to the record-breaking blizzard was poor in Queens, and this is unacceptable. Unfortunately, our borough, which is the City’s biggest, again got the short end of the stick,” Peralta added.
Peralta Tweeted on Sunday night that de Blasio should have closed schools in Queens, as many streets remained covered in snow, despite the claims that streets would be cleared by Monday morning.
“@BilldeBlasio should close schools tomorrow,” his Tweet read. “The streets are not plowed. Parents will have a hard time dropping off children.”
Even after de Blasio and his administration promised that the streets in Queens would be clear by Monday morning, they were not, according to Peralta.
“This Administration promised that the streets were going to be cleaned and plowed by this morning, but this is not the case.”
Assemblyman Francisco Moya echoed those sentiments.
“The City’s storm response has been unacceptable,” he said. “We were given assurances that the streets of Queens would be plowed by Monday morning and yet many streets remain covered in snow. Our borough deserves better,” he said.
Astoria Councilman Costa Constantinides urged residents to report any areas that still need to be plowed.
“We’ve been working with DSNY and the Mayor’s Office to expedite this ongoing process at any particular areas where plowing was delayed,” he said.
“As we continue to clear streets and sidewalks throughout the neighborhood, residents can report icy areas online at on.nyc.gov/1he7h74 or to our office at 718-274-4500.”
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36 Comments
Love how all haters have fake names.
Phil take your meds
Does Jimmy Van Bramer actual work or is he just available for photo ops!! I never seen such a bigger media whore!!
DeBlasio looks down on Queens and real working people (since he has never worked a day in his life). As for Jimmy, JImmy is for Jimmy and his photo ops. In a sane world, these two would not be elected dog catchers!
The square block of sidewalks surrounding the city park at 43rd Street between Greenpoint and 47th Avenues didn’t get any snow removal until yesterday, and the entire 42nd Street side has yet to be shoveled. This is disgraceful considering that the Parks Department employs a maintenance staff for that location.
Why not take a novel approach to this and bring out the snow melters when we have this much snow hit us?
The city has 36 snow melters from what I could find. They could deploy 15 of them to Queens where they are fully aware the streets are narrow and all that is going to happen is the cars are going to get buried, only to be dug out again and the snow put back in the street.
The city knows there are issues in Queens. We hear about it every time we get a heavy snowstorm. Instead of doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result (the very definition of insanity) try something else.
The inmates are running the asylum.
Its the same thing everytime it snows. Another place they should get on top of is around Sunnyside Gardens and telling people to shove their property. The cross walks are half shoved and some you have to climb over snow.
And whoever is in charge of maintaining the street along 48th street near the shopping plaza with the large parking log needs to be told the same. Everytime it snows the sidewalk where all the trucks loading ports are is covered with ice and snow you have to climb over. The same for behind Dunkin Donuts past it. Its cleared for cars but no pedestrians.
I shouldn’t have to cross over to the other side of the street to walk on shoved sidewalk to get to a location on the opposite side because of piles of snow.
Right you are Luna! Time to ticket the no-shovel places, both residential and businesses. Corner businesses are responsible for cutting paths at the street corners. Rite Aid on 43rd Ave./45th St. is a chronic problem every snowstorm.
Report non-shovellers to the city at this URL: on.nyc.gov/1he7h74
All I have to say is ” no more years years “
Ive been parking my car on the bikes lanes on queens blvd. if the city aint plowing it im using it as parking. first time its been useful
Thank god for the bike lanes on Q.B that they spent millions on. There really useful right now. Also next year they’ll spend millions on maintenance . What a waste of resources.
did they clean those off ? bikes first cars you lose.
no bike lanes were cleaned at all why should they nobody is ever on them at all —
Bloomberg would of gotten the job done instead of trying to blame the size of queens. Thanks de bullshito
Bloomberg had his fails too, particularly the big xmas storm five years ago when he was on his holidays in Bermuda or wherever.
Let It snow for 400, Alex.
Two idiots walking down the street together. I’m surprised JVB didn’t ask him to hold his hand so he doesn’t fall in a snow pile.
Than you got this cheerleader Peter saying how great he is??? Omg give me a break.
Trump had it right saying how incompetent Deblasio is on meet the press. Good thing he hasn’t seen how useless Van Bramer is.
I think he knows that lot’s of people are angry with him about having idea of building over rail yard and not building Middle School and #7 train so he tries to make us feel special and that is the only reason while he mentioned Sunnyside. It is all politics.
I wonder if they’ll ever add another track on the 7 Train. Either elevated aove the existing or adjacent.
DeSnowgate = one-term mayor.
Diblasio showing no love for Queens. Homeless shelter in old pan am hotel, fail bike lanes causing so much traffic in woodside, and fail storm response. My street is still not plowed.
Perhaps if people decided NOT to disobey travel ban ending up stuck and abandoning cars in middle of street then the trucks could do their jobs!!! Be part of the solution, Not the complaint committee!!!
Some idiot got stuck right on 39th Avenue between 45 and 46th street.
The ban was in place so they could clear the streets. They didn’t clear the streets and people got stuck. I did not see a single vehicle get stuck during the ban, most of them attempted to drive after the ban assuming city did something, but turns out they didn’t do anything.. I saw plow truck almost get stuck on 44th street and he wasn’t even plowing. Why drive if you are not plowing?
Sunnyside streets were bad, but have improved a bit. I had to drive today and it was not good.
Even his own people don’t listen to the Mayor. 1 Term Mayor is too much for him. He should resign for the good of all New Yorkers. What he has done on so many issues and Carmen Farina, the City is going back to the 70s by the end of his term!
Phil is a hater. I hope your street didnt get plowed. Do you know what it feels like to live in a district with a crappy council member? I’ll tell ya… It sucks! JVB is doing a fine job. Better than the last dude and especially our mayor.
JVB’s response seemed to consist in mostly taking pictures of himself gazing off into the distance in the snow and posting them on Twitter. The only thing missing was Balto. My point is if he put less effort into showboating and backing obviously doomed candidates (Quinn) and more into actually advocating for his district we’d all be better off.
Constant 7 train shenanigans, reduced police patrols, ridiculous corruption in Queens Library, overcrowded schools. Of course these are not directly Van Bramer’s fault, but taken together, they are troubling.
Cheap photo ops aside, does Van Bramer even try to ensure his constituency gets its fair share of city resources? The man is majority leader, for crying out loud.
Jimmy cares about his own street – 46th Street – and that is it.
I don’t know why everyone is complaining about there not being any City snow removal presence – I was kept awake all night by one of its vehicles getting stuck on 61st Street and then half of the fleet trying to extricate it, only to bang it off three parked cars in the process. I whipped up a little Storify to pass the time.
https://storify.com/OldManSteiner/beep-beep-beep-crunch-beep
just checked your storify, wow!! I live on 50th and they plowed the street 3 times I think, it wasn’t bad, we had worse than that!
The title should read, “Di Blasio and Van Brammer go trick-or-treating in the Sunnyside area only to find they can’t get through the snow… So they turn around and go home.”
Pick up a shovel A-holes!
but Jimmy Van Bramer’s block was shoveled —
Love it!