Randy Woodbury made the proposal at a meeting of the Common Council’s DPW Committee Thursday. He wants to close the pedestrian underpass of Norfolk Southern railroad tracks in conjunction with a repaving project on nearby West Third Street.

The secluded underpass gets used as a public toilet, trash bin, drug deal site, and graffiti taggers’ paradise. The city was supposed to install security cameras in 2022 — but there’s no sign they went in.

Whatever happened with the cameras, the tunnel is thoroughly trashed. Garbage covers the floor. The walls were repainted more than once in recent years, but the taggers destroyed those efforts.

Woodbury thinks the area ought to get closed off. People can easily cross under the tracks at the nearby Third and Swan streets intersection, he said.

OBSERVER Photo by M.J. Stafford Dunkirk Department of Public Works head Randy Woodbury wants the city to close its infamous Robin Street underpass.

“If there has to be a safety fence to keep kids from crossing (the tracks) at grade, we’ll do it,” Woodbury said.

He noted that the city will have to work with Norfolk Southern on closing the underpass.

Woodbury offered a bit of a history lesson: He said the underpass is a relic from the days when Robin Street residents could cross at-grade railroad tracks at Third Street to reach the lakefront. Planners of the project to elevate the tracks in the 1930s evidently wanted to preserve their direct lakefront access.

The West Third Street paving is a top priority for DPW, Woodbury said. It would finish a job started last year, when the city resurfaced East Third Street (which runs from Main Street to Central Avenue).

OBSERVER Photos by M.J. Stafford Graffiti adorns the walls and trash litters the floor of the Robin Street underpass. The OBSERVER blurred out graffiti that shows private parts of the human anatomy.