Washington Heights residents challenge cops to crack down on ATVs
A group of outraged residents is challenging cops to short circuit illegal ATVs and bikes they charge are wrecking the quality of life in Washington Heights.
“Our corner of the neighborhood has intense and long-running problems with public safety and livability affecting our health and well-being,” Eileen King told The Post. “The way that streets are laid out make us a destination for drag racing, motorcycle gangs, and dangerous driving of all kinds.”
King charged “there is little to no enforcement of any traffic/reckless driving laws, and the scale of the problem transcends periodic drive-bys by police cars.”
She said the outlaw drivers “are emboldened by the lack of enforcement and the situation is now cemented into place.”
King noted that “every night and for hours and hours from Friday afternoon through Monday 4 a.m., a portion of our neighborhood is taken over by reckless drivers from other parts of the city.”
King said the section at 193rd Street and St. Nicholas Avenue” is the beginning of the drag racing” and the motorcycles and cars come up Fort George Hill and turn left — which is illegal — onto Fort George Avenue and then onto Amsterdam, which is four lanes wide and bordering a “densely residential area that is traumatized by these cars and motorcycles.”
One disgusted resident, who wished to remain unidentified, echoed that Saint Nicholas Avenue, Fort George Avenue, Fort George Hill and Audubon Avenue, “become a giant race track with dozens of cars, motorcycles and Quads racing through doing loops on all of these streets, running red lights, on the sidewalks, with super loud mufflers that sound like gunshots, doing donuts.”
She added: “They then stop on Amsterdam Avenue/ Fort George Avenue and party, heavy drinking, drugs, gigantic speakers on top of cars.”
The resident charged local cops from the 34th Precinct will post pictures on social media trumpeting “we took this one speaker” or “we grabbed two bikes from Inwood Hill Park” but “ignore 25 speakers the size of a small refrigerators on top of cars on Amsterdam and ignore the 30 dirtbikes tearing through Highbridge Park, on the Micheal Buzek astroturf ballfield.”
Yubi Cespedes, 47, of Fort George Hill, said she endures the mayhem nightly and after less than two years in Washington Heights “is ready to move out.”
King said NYPD officials from the 34th Precinct station reported this week that they will put up barriers on the problematic stretch of Amsterdam and Fort George avenues and “we hope it will work.”
“As the weather warms up the NYPD is conducting focused enforcement, and deploying additional resources, aimed at reducing this problematic and dangerous behavior. We are continuing to meet with motorcycle safety advocates and community leaders to amplify our message,” the department said Saturday afternoon in a statement. The NYPD noted the 34th Precinct “has conducted multiple operations over the past few weeks resulting in more than 20 motorcycle/ATV seizures. Additionally, different portions of roadways have been periodically closed to traffic to prevent large, disorderly groups from congregating.”
