On West Side, an Obstacle Course of Potholes and Cave-Ins

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times A stretch of 11th Avenue between 27th and 28th Streets on the West Side of Manhattan has become hazardous to automobile tires. A permanent fix to the problem has been hard to achieve.

New York City is a rough ride, no doubt about it, with most roads pocked with at least some bumps and divots.

New Yorkers generally take these bone-jarring indignities in stride, albeit with plenty of grumbling. But the jagged protrusions and valleys on 11th Avenue near West 27th Street on Manhattan’s West Side seem to have particularly caught drivers’ attentions. That area has generated more than two dozen complaints to 311, the city’s help line, since November 2012, according to the agency’s online service repair map.

The stretch of avenue, between the High Line Park and Chelsea Piers, is a crucial conduit, feeding traffic â€" full of drivers who have to slow down or risk damaging their cars â€" on to the West Side Highway just to the south.

“It’s a serious problem,” said Walter D’Urso, a sales manager at Manhattan Motorcars, which is alongside the potentially treacherous terrain. Saying that he sells Rolls-Royces and Lamborghinis in a location where every test drive feels like an off-road adventure, Mr. D’Urso added, “It’s pretty dangerous and someone should pay attention. I see cars get damaged every day.”

The street began deteriorating nearly two years ago when a privately owned pipe leaked below the street, said Chris Gilbride, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Environmental Protection. A problem like this can become severe, he said, because a leak is often unnoticed until it washes away so much of the dirt above it that the asphalt buckles.

When that happened on 11th Avenue, the city’s Transportation Department contacted the Department of Environmental Protection, Mr. Gilbride said. Cameras used in a subsurface inspection by the city revealed that the leak was from pipes coming from 263 11th Avenue, a former warehouse from the1890s that now houses art and design showrooms. The owner completed the repairs by Feb. 21, 2012, Mr. Gilbride said.

The responsibility for repairing the surface of the street then fell to the Transportation Department, Mr. Gilbride said.

Nicholas Mosquera, a spokesman for the Transportation Department, said in an email that the agency had improved its pothole repair response time by 39 percent in one year, to an average of less than 36 hours, and had fixed 286,000 holes in the last fiscal year, ending on June 30. The problem on 11th Avenue, however, was more complicated, he said.

In subsequent emails, Mr. Mosquera cited “the need to let the excavated roadway section settle after the utility work” as the initial reason for the delay and cited dozens of other permits for work in the area, including some for Consolidated Edison and Time Warner and “numerous, perhaps overlapping projects including MTA work related to the 7 train extension” (about a quarter mile to the north).

Mr. Mosquera said the Transportation Department would give a street a complete makeover “only when resources are available and there are no conflicts with potential subsurface needs that would tear up a fresh roadway.”

The department considers this stretch of 11th Avenue eligible for a full resurfacing, he said, adding, “While that has not yet been scheduled, it will be in the future.”