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Dear Assemblyman Kim and Councilman Koo,
It is Sunday morning, the third day after the ice storm that hit New York City. I live on Northern Boulevard and this morning, I took the Q13 bus to the terminal stop on 39th Avenue, between Main Street and Union Street.

I was shocked to see the perilous situation that awaited me and all the passengers who take the Q13, Q16, and Q28– YOUR CONSTITUENTS. There is a sheet of solid ice all along the entire bus dropoff area across the street from the former Municipal Parking Lot. It was never shoveled, salted, or sanded by any city agency, nor have the shop owners along that stretch done even the minimum to mitigate the danger to pedestrians. I slowly made my way over the ice, to Lippmann Plaza, which is also a nearly solid sheet of ice this morning. When I was a store manager on 76th and Broadway in Manhattan a few years ago, our corporate office provided us with salt and shovels and we were mandated to shovel at least a path, or risk being written up. The sanitation police were out in force in those days.This was less than 5 years ago– what has happened? Where is the accountability of shop owners, of city agencies, and of you, our politicians?

Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue is the one of the busiest transit hubs in all of New York City and it falls squarely in your Assembly District and Council District respectively. I frankly don’t know how your staffs can get to their jobs in the mess that is out there. It is horrible that this always-busy, highly congested area of Queens still has not been properly serviced by the MTA and the NYC Department of Sanitation. I can understand being unable to shovel out every one of the thousands of bus stops in NYC in three days. But to ignore the peril to bus passengers– many of them elderly– for the terminal stop of three major bus lines, which feeds the terminal stop of one of the busiest subway lines in NYC, is negligent and dangerous.

Additionally, access to the LIRR stops at Main Street and Murray Hill is also treacherous and covered with ice. Nothing at all has been done (no shovel/salt/sand) on the city-bound side of the Main Street LIRR stop– it looks like Lippmann Plaza– and there is no clear sidewalk access on the north side of the Murray Hill LIRR station, just iced-over paths where people have walked before.

You are my elected officials and I am appealing to you to do something about this TODAY. At minimum, the bus dropoff and Lippmann Plaza and access to the Main Street and Murray Hill LIRR stops MUST be salted and sanded to make it safe. The shop owners on the bus dropoff area should be cited for not shoveling their small areas of sidewalk. You represent us, do something meaningful. Your constituents should not have to risk life and limb to get off a city bus and cross a street.

I will posting this letter on my blog, on your Facebook pages, and Twitter. You must do something to resolve this dangerous situation. Your constituents depend on you.

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