Bluestone sidewalk project under review

>> The never-ending saga of replacing the bluestone sidewalks on Main Street may have overcome yet another delay after state officials reviewed slight discrepancies with the grade level and Americans with Disabilities Act requirements.

The update was provided following a Village Board meeting Monday, when special assignments coordinator Alex Wade said the amount of pitch from the buildings to the street was out of compliance, but not really noticeable.

“One section that we want help with ... here and there exactly meets their requirements and then (in other areas) is slightly over,” he said.

The sidewalk was put in so that storm water drains toward the street, with state Department of Transportation officials recently objecting to the amount of slope and are holding up engineering approvals, which, in turn, is delaying authorization to spend grant funding.

“The ADA requirement is to not exceed 2 percent (grade) side to side,” Wade said. “If you’re in a wheelchair and you have a sideto-side slope, it pulls the wheelchair and it’s hard to navigate a wheelchair on anything that has a side-toside slope.”

Village officials have been trying for about nine years to have the sidewalks replaced using about $200,000 in federal funds toward the $312,669 project.

The replacement includes sidewalks on the south side of Main Street, covering 276 feet west of the intersection with Partition Street and 230 feet east of the intersection. There will also be 130 feet of curb replacement.

The funding is the money left over from a $960,000 grant approved for the village Streetscape project, which was completed in 2010, It took six years for federal officials to approve use of the balance for the sidewalk project, which then required three more years of engineering reviews and bidding for the costs to be low enough for approval.

Wade said that representatives for U.S. Rep. Antonio Delgado, D-Rhinebeck, have been asked to support an exemption for the handicapped requirements.

“In as much as this funding was originally provided to us by Congressman Maurice Hinchey and finalized by Congressman (Chris) Gibson, I reached out the local office of our current congressman for assistance,” he said.

Wade said Delgado’s office did contact him after the meeting with the state engineer, who is expected to recommend allowing the project to proceed.

“We might ... need them to help with it if the bosses of this (state engineer) don’t agree with him that we need to get an exemption for this particular area,” he said.