Is this the worst place in Albany for pedestrians?
ALBANY — On a recent morning, Jahrod Kirk and his family stepped off a bus at the corner of Brevator Street and Washington Avenue. They were about to begin a terrifying journey.
Their destination was the office of the family pediatrician in the Patroon Creek Corporate Center. With Kirk and his wife, Jessica Betances-Kirk, each pushing a stroller carrying a young child, they walked a bridge over Route 85 before stepping onto an apparently nameless ramp that connects Washington Avenue with a Harriman Campus access road.
There were no sidewalks, so the couple and their two sons, ages six months and 1 year, were forced to walk in the roadway, dodging cars exiting and entering Route 85. Eventually, the journey took them onto the access road proper, where the family walked in one of three lanes of fast-moving commuter traffic. Again, there is no sidewalk there, nor is there a bike or breakdown lane.
“We’ve almost been hit by cars over there many different times, just to get to the doctor’s office,” Jahrod, 31, told me. “We’ve been trying to find a different way to get there, but there isn’t any.”
I made the same walk a few days after the Kirks, who live in the South End. The journey was a little better for me, because not having a stroller to push allowed me to walk on an uneven dirt pathway worn through the grass adjacent to the road. But if there had been snow on the ground, I also would have been forced to walk in the road.
Even from the safety of the grass, the walk across entrance and exit ramps and along what is essentially a highway was
geant and commanding the department’s drug enforcement unit where he served for eight years in addition to 10 years in patrol and 10 years as a sergeant. He retired from the city police to become undersheriff for 12 years under former Sheriff Jack Mahar. Then he won election twice as sheriff serving eight years.
Russo is the only elected police official in the county. That’s why he takes the term “the people’s lawman.”
“You have to get out in the community. People want to see the sheriff. I’ll miss the people,” Russo said.
For Russo, that’s meant trekking around the county to attend events from senior citizen gatherings in Stephentown to ceremonies in Troy, where he lives, with no plans to leave after he retires. Russo is married with two children and three grandchildren.
Building on his background of drug investigations in Troy, Russo has beefed up drug enforcement by his department. He said he’s proud of the work his investigators have done whether it’s running drug raids, domestic cases or dealing with homicide investigations.
Russo saves special pride for expanding the department’s school resource officers program from one school in the county to seven different schools. Those deputies taking on that role have been able to develop community contacts, the sheriff said, and build trust with students.
Russo is turning the office over to Sgt. Kyle Bourgault who won the election in November for sheriff. Bourgault said he will continue the 287(g) program as it’s currently run. The major challenge the sheriff and sheriff-elect agree on is bringing the jail staffing up to full strength.
The jail is budgeted to have 175 officers working in corrections positions. There are 43 vacancies, leaving 132 guards to oversee the 184 inmates currently locked up.
“I have 100 percent confidence in Kyle,” said Russo, who was among a prominent circle of county Republicans backing Bourgault through the party selection process, the primaries and the general election.