Town seeks lower speed limit for half-mile stretch

The Town Board is asking the state Department of Transportation to reduce the speed limit on Glasco Turnpike from 55 to 35 mph along a halfmile stretch between U.S. Route 9W and state Route 32.

The request was approved at a board meeting Wednesday. Town officials said residents have complained about motorists driving too fast along the stretch.

“We were approached by some residents ... about slowing the traffic and speed,” said Councilman Fred Costello. “This is hopefully a solution to address some of those concerns.”

Saugerties Police Chief Joseph Sinagra said after the meeting that the stretch is used by motorists to cut nearly a mile off a trip to an intersection where Routes 9W and 32 merge.

“People cut over from 9W to 32, people cut over from 32 to 9W, going to work and ... it’s become a speedway,” he said.

“I’ve been doing a lot of speed reports on [Route] 32 ... and those people are flying,” Sinagra said. “I write for 11 miles or higher [over the speed limit] and I wrote 10 tickets there the other night in an hour and a half.”

Information on the number of accidents along that stretch of Glasco Turnpike was not immediately available, though Sinagra said there was a fatal accident last year at the intersection with state Route 32.

“The person had just left church and was making a turn and got hit by an oncoming northbound vehicle,” he said.