Traffic safety takes center stage
City lawmakers plan to involve Kingston’s engineer and safety officer in decisions regarding traffic-control measures that might be enacted in the future.
Alderwoman Andrea Shaut said Monday that city officials are working on enacting a uniform reporting system in which every traffic safety request is studied first by the engineer and safety officer. After those studies are complete, recommendations would be made to the Common Council so it could take any appropriate action, Shaut said.
Shaut also said constituents would be informed of the outcome of their requests.
Shaut, D-Ward 9, led a traffic safety forum Monday evening at City Hall during which residents were able to raise concerns and ask questions of several city department heads and a representative from the Ulster County Transportation Council. The goal was to have city lawmakers look at traffic safety issues on a citywide basis, rather than make piecemeal fixes such as installing stop signs when asked for one, Shaut said.
“Where instead of the council just makes up these decisions where to put a stop sign, it actually will have to go through studying by the engineer and by the safety officer,” Shaut said.
She said council members already have tried to be more aware of their actions and involve Diane Bergquist, the city’s safety officer, before deciding whether to enact traffic safety measures. Shaut said, for instance, each stop sign has a ripple effect on the area where it is installed and the engineer and safety officer would be able to study that.
Many of the comments made during the forum involved individual’s concerns, such as the safety of an intersection on Broadway near Yosman Tower.
Shaut said she knew people would bring up their personal concerns at the forum, but those things represent a lot of what is happening citywide. She said there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
“But if it’s a problem at one side of the city, it’s probably happening at another side of the city, too,” Shaut said.
Kristen Wilson, director of the city’s Office of Grants Management, said the intersection near Yosman Tower, an apartment building for seniors, would be addressed through a Pedestrian Safety Action Plan that is being developed with federal funding. She said, though, that will take time before any improvements are made to the intersection.
Wilson said it takes two to four years to implement projects with federal aid because there is a lot of documentation, engineering and design that goes into each one.
Brian Slack, principal transportation planner for the Ulster County Transportation Council, spoke about his agency’s role in planning and capital projects going on in Kingston. He said the Transportation Council is undertaking a signage and wayfinding study for Kingston that will focus on people getting around the city. There also is a separate “traffic signal warrant analysis” being done to determine whether 12 particular traffic signals in the city are warranted, Slack said.
On the capital side, Slack said the Transportation Council is involved in 11 projects in Kingston that are receiving federal aid. One of those is the Empire State Trail, which is to include the creation of a sidewalk on state Route 32 near Golden Hill, he said.
Other projects include the creation of a roundabout at the intersection of Broadway, Albany Avenue and Col. Chandler Drive, as well as sidewalk projects on Henry Street and Flatbush and Foxhall avenues, Slack said.
Slack said those 11 projects represent a total of $72 million in federal aid coming to the city.