Community leaders and city agency representatives gathered for a ribbon cutting at the new bike lane on Beach 108th Street in Rockaway Park.
Photo by John Schilling
Representatives from city agencies gathered together in Rockaway Park on Tuesday, June 13, for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to announce the completion of the $16.6 million infrastructure project dedicated to rebuilding the peninsula’s Beach 108th Street.
Among the block’s newest features is 11,000 square feet of new permeable concrete slabs, also referred to as “porous pavement,” designed for better drainage into the ground below. The ceremony included a demonstration of the porous pavement’s draining abilities, as workers from the Department of Environmental Protection poured water onto the concrete from a nearby hydrant.
“The really, really cool factor is [it’s] the first time on a city project that we have our permeable concrete that we’re working out here,” said Department of Design and Construction Commissioner Thomas Foley. “It’s the show-stopper.”
Beach 108th Street was one of many blocks on the Rockaway peninsula that suffered damage from Hurricane Sandy in 2012, contributing to the large size of the rebuilding project. As a result, the Department of Environmental Protection’s Unified Stormwater Rule, which took effect in 2022, required the use of Green Infrastructure in the project. The department will also require this for other similar projects citywide.
“We’re going to be doing this everywhere, not just here in Rockaway so it’s an important step forward,” said Department of Environmental Protection Chief Operating Officer Vincent Sapienza. “We really need to make our surfaces more permeable so that they soak up that rainfall.”
The city estimates that the addition of porous pavement to Beach 108th Street will allow the block to absorb and drain approximately 1.3 million gallons of stormwater into the ground annually. The repairing of…
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