Informal meeting notes for
and sent to NYSDOT via email on
NYSDOT
Region 1 Design (
Ian Ross,
Geoff Wood), Program Mgt (Frank Bonafide), CDTA (Kristina
Younger,
Ross Farrell, Tony Grieco),
Tom Tobin),
Town of
Notes from
Meeting yesterday (
-High
visibility/aesthetically pleasing crosswalk treatments at all major
intersections (similar to the treatment used in the Schenectady Crosstown project) and will explore installing them at all
CDTA bus stop/station locations. At
major intersections crosswalks may be wider than at lower volume crossings,
similar to the approach the City of
-Incorporating
the BRT station design elements within the curb to curb area at the Colonie Ctr/Nway Mall area
including a raised median with a cut thru crosswalk bisecting it (Town agreed
to do snow removal within this "pass thru area" - pending
confirmation from their Pub Wks). DOT
will examine operational issues re: this including signal timing/phasing
implications/needed changes to make it work safely in coord
with Traffic & Safety - i.e. there would need to be a fully protected ped phase (I think there already is ...)
-Discussion
of restriping lanes to accommodate a separate 6 ft bike lane was dismissed as
there isn't enough cross section to work with – also CDTA said bike lanes
conflict with transit - creating a safety issue. (I think this is something we
need to work on in general - if we don't start getting a real bike network I
think that's a problem). DOT was promoting
exploration of a wide curb lane to accommodate bikes (they said higher skilled
riders like those better than bike lanes).
Anyway
- that's
a moot point because the group discouraged wide curb lanes and (esp the Town) requested that DOT look into narrowing the
travel lanes (if they're greater than the 11 ft that's required). DOT agreed to consider striping the outside
of the curb lane the length of the project to create an 11 ft lane and leave a
strip between that lane and the curb (prob 2 - 3 ft)
which would help calm traffic, etc. CDTA
was OK with that. DOT said there is
some concern re: the long term maintenance
issues
with this striping however and they have to factor that in – so it's not a sure
thing at this point but they seemed like they would like to do it.
-There
could be some curb resetting/re-delineation work under the following
circumstances:
o where there are existing bus traps that are currently unused or will be unused in the near future by CDTA (either because of bad dwy placing that occurred since traps were put in or where local stops will disappear due to the consolidation of stops that's planned for the corridor in addition to/conjunction with the NY 5 BRT), DOT would remove the trap area by resetting the curb back toward the street in line with curbs above and below the bus pullout. CDTA will go thru and ID these for DOT asap. (It should be noted that the BRT station draft designs all call for the bus stopping in the outside travel lane at the stations - except for at Colonie Ctr/Nway Mall.
o Where there are
inappropriately long stretches of commercial frontage that is paved and
driveways are currently undefined/curbing has eroded, (i.e. around
In
addition, to start out the meeting DOT handed out a sheet with a list of items
tentatively included in the project scope including:
With
respect to locations where DOT will be tearing sidewalks up to install
detectable warnings, if there are sidewalk gaps or deficiencies as ID'd thru CDTA's station design/envl clearance work, DOT said they thought they'd probably
be able to address most if not all of those
while they're in there.
Also,
project funding is $6.7 M and they hope to have plans completed by January 2008
with an April letting date so that the project could be done next construction
season - if letting slips to June 2008 they'd miss next season. Rehab itself should take 1 year to complete
once started. There will be no utility
work except that which is limited to where poles are in the road (?) or at
sidewalk curb ramps. This project will
be
The
need/desire for holding a public workshop on the elements to be included in the
project scope once they're fleshed out was discussed. It was decided that it would be desirable
just from the pt of view of letting people know about the project/potential
disruption/night rehab work, but also to put the rehab in the broader context
of the vision for the corridor that includes the imminent BRT stations/service
and access management, other elements of the Rte 5 corridor study and local initiatives
including the Village's streetscape/archi glines and the Town's comp plan/rezoning that all strive to
make the corridor a pedestrian friendly revitalized "place". So, DOT will coordinate with everyone and
everyone in the group will provide materials, etc for that workshop.
Finally,
I asked Frank if they were OK with proceeding to draft a scope for the overall
Rte 5 access management study (the contract for which CDTA would like to bundle
with the queue jumpers and transit signal priority work) which would include
this segment from Fuller to NKR with an eye toward developing mid to longer
term solution concepts, but also to do the community/staff level "quick
and dirty" aerial based workshop to id some shorter term solutions - he
said YES proceed. The Town and Village
like this dual approach as they reiterated (again!) that the more ideas they
have spanning shorter to longer term solutions the more tools they have when
dealing with redeveloping properties along the corridor. During this discussion the DOT designers
chimed in that having these tools would help DOT immensely as well - mostly by keeping everyone on
the same page and moving in the same direction to reduce conflicts along the
corridor.
Other
misc. info: The village in
coordination/coop with Town of
Glines done thru the linkage study - altho'
they hope to soon.
There
were promises to share initial materials as soon as they're Available and to
keep the dialogue going.
Anne
Benware
Senior
Transportation Planner
Capital
District Transportation Committee
(518)
458-2161 (phone)
(518)
459-2155 (fax)