| Town sees finish line in long-awaited Main Street reconstruction |
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| Written by Mark Lungariello and Christian Falcone |
| Thursday, 04 February 2010 17:29 |
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A border dispute over flooding fears that prolonged a road reconstruction project seems finally on the path to completion, town officials are saying. West Harrison’s Main Street has long been the epicenter of community unrest due to its aesthetically unpleasing makeup, congested parking and recent flooding concerns. The street longed for modernization. In an attempt to address those concerns the town embarked on a public dialogue over what to do; talks focused on improving the drainage of the area, installing a sidewalk and reconstructing the parking dynamic, in area where residents were known to park head-on to the curb in any area more conducive to parallel parking. But questions arose lengthening the discussion over which side to implement the sidewalk, considering the move would reduce the width of the roadway considerably. The road was roughly 75 feet wide; the proposed work was planned to cut it nearly in half. With so many variables, the town slowly moved forward with the project, which dates back to the prior administration of Steve Malfitano (R), the former mayor. Upon digging up the road, the town decided to put in larger piping to help ease flooding the biggest source of discontent over the previous two years. The street, which lies at the bottom of the Silver Lake area, became the bottom of the bowl for flooding in the area with water runoff worsening to the point where water began to buckle garage doors. “It was not your typical, everyday flooding issue,” Councilman Joseph Cannella (R) said. “It was like you were standing in front of a river or a dam that had broke.” And at first glance, the new piping seemed to be working, alleviating the severe flooding that the area had encountered. However the City White Plains soon would involve itself, contesting that the water was being diverted to Brockway Place – an industrial area on the municipal border between the city and West Harrison. The city feared that Harrison’s work would exacerbate flooding and drown out its industrial area. Mayor Joan Walsh (D) said White Plains wanted the town to redivert the location of the outflow to a portion of the Mamaroneck River at Underhill Avenue near the foot of I-287. After some negotiations, which only proved to delay the project even further, the two municipalities agreed to a reduction in the size of the pipes without changing the source of the outflow. Now according to Walsh, all that remains is the final layer of paving which is expected this spring. The mayor assured that every issue with the neighboring municipality has been resolved at this point. However, White Plains does have the project under its microscope once again with a new mayor, Adam Bradley (D), having just taken office. Bradley has asked Joseph Nicoletti, the city’s commissioner of public works, the mayor told us, to look into the matter and his message was cut and dry. “If it’s going to create additional flooding in White Plains we have a problem,” he said, “If it doesn’t create additional flooding then we don’t have a problem with it.” But to Councilman Canella, the issue all along has been nothing more than a miscommunication in regards to the piping. Nonetheless, he did admit that what has been put in “is far, far better than what was…unfortunately the delay of completion meant a much longer period of inconvenience,” Canella continued. “This was a major upgrade, it was mess for a very long time.”
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