$5 million OK’d for roundabout project
KINGSTON, N.Y. » The Ulster County Transportation Council has agreed to reprogram $5 million in state and federal funding toward the Uptown roundabout project.
Ulster County Planning Director Dennis Doyle said Monday that the council gave the green light to the reprogramming on July 23.
The reprogramming includes a shift of state and federal funding from other regional projects to the planned roundabout construction set to begin this fall.
Bids for the project are expected to be sought by the state Department of Transportation in September.
In July, officials had said the cost of creating the traffic roundabout where Col. Chandler Drive, Albany Avenue and Broadway intersect has jumped by about 70 percent.
Once forecast to have a price tag of $7 million, the project now is expected to cost $12 million.
The roundabout — which planners say will ease traffic flow at the busy and sometimes confusing intersection — is being overseen by the state Department of Transportation, and all of the money for the project is coming from state and federal coffers.
Gina DiSarro, public information officer for the state Department of Transportation, has said
the larger price tag for the roundabout is the result of “some additions to the contract and plans, which created an increase in costs for construction, design and inspection.”
The project is to begin in October and is expected to take two years to complete.
Besides changing the flow of vehicular traffic, the roundabout is to include a 10-foot-wide mixed-use path for pedestrians and bicyclists, as well as an elevated crosswalk above Col. Chandler Drive (I-587).
Signs directing traffic to and through the roundabout will be “ground mounted” rather than overhead, as the current signs are.
Meanwhile, a Common Council committee is to vote Monday night on whether to recommend an additional $280,000 in borrowing to install new sewer pipes at the site of the planned roundabout.
The committee was to consider a request by City Engineer Ralph Swenson to increase borrowing for the project from $800,000 to at least $1,079,554.16. The project initially was expected to cost about $685,000.
The initial $800,000 in borrowing for the work — to be performed where Broadway, Albany Avenue and Col. Chandler Drive come together — was approved by the council in December.