Digging Deep : The Gas-Line Project That Tested Our Street – and Patience

By Jacqueline Birnbaum & Dean Surkin

One day last spring, while walking our dog, Dean saw workers marking the street with spray paint. He asked what they were doing and they replied that they were marking the position of the gas- lines under the pavement. A short time later, two ConEd workers showed up at our door and explained that they would soon be starting to replace the gas line on our street, Bronxville Road. This would include tearing up the road in front of our house, digging large, deep holes that would be covered with metal plates after each day’s work, putting in the new gas line, connecting it to all the houses on the block, and, lastly, repaving the road. They said that once they got started, the job would take two months to complete. (Have you stopped laughing yet?)

Over the next few weeks, a pile of huge plastic pipes appeared on Clark Place, along with stacks of metal plates. Then the work began. They dug trenches to expose the old metal pipes and laid the new pipes alongside; they did not remove the old pipes.

They also dug access trenches to every house on the street. One afternoon, our landscaper knocked on our door to tell us that the plate in front of our house had shifted, exposing a hole around 5 feet wide and 4 feet deep. This posed a danger to cars and cyclists. We called the police, and while we were waiting for them to arrive, we stood in the street and directed traffic around the hole. Eventually the police came, and then a few hours later a road crew came to reposition the plate. The plates remained in place for many months, and cars drove on the wrong side of the street to avoid them, creating a hazardous situation.

As the delays continued, former Association president Steve Wagner intervened with the City of Yonkers and persuaded them to finish the work in the fall before the snow and snowplows came. ConEd had to dig around individual houses to connect the new gas line. In our case, they ripped out many of our hosta by the side of the house. Finally, the road crew stripped the old road surface, repaved Bronxville Road, and painted lines on the road. We are all glad that the disruption is finally over!

P.S. Shortly after the work was completed, our house had several power blackouts--it turns out that when ConEd dug up the street, they damaged our electric cables.