Metro

City’s street-‘fix’ blunder

Red-faced city officials yesterday ripped up a cluster of tree-lined pedestrian islands — installed just 10 months ago to make it safer for the elderly to navigate traffic — after ambulance drivers complained the narrower streets slowed their response times to a busy Brooklyn hospital.

The Department of Transportation paid a hefty $70,000 to build the stretch of islands on Fort Hamilton Parkway in Borough Park and another $10,000 to tear most of them down.

In a letter to the community board, Chevra Hatzalah — a volunteer Jewish ambulance service — said the islands “significantly imperiled Hatzalah’s patients” by creating traffic jams near Maimonides Medical Center.

Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who threatened to sue the city to remove the islands, said Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan told him it had been a mistake to put the dividers up.

“It was a disaster,” he said.

A spokesman for the DOT said they plan to create a “a 24-block, community-supported redesign” that will address safety concerns for pedestrians.

jennifer.fermino@nypost.com