Sidewalks, Crosswalks/City, County

At the Common Council Police Committee meeting last Monday, it was agreed that a stop sign--or maybe two--was needed at West Court and Allen streets. Always a treacherous corner because of the way drivers tend not to stay on their side of the roadway when negotiating the turn from West Court onto Allen or from Allen onto West Court, it has become even more hazardous since the work on the courthouse was completed and the building reopened last November.

Before the restoration and expansion of the courthouse, there was a sidewalk that went along the south side of Allen Street and met up with the sidewalk on the east side of West Court Street. When the parking lot was resurfaced, after the construction at the courthouse was complete, the sidewalk was not replaced. Instead the asphalt of the parking lot was continued out into the street, and crosswalk bars were painted where the sidewalk should be.

In the past, when there was a proper sidewalk in place, the occasional befuddled tourist would miss the turn and end up in the parking lot, but now, with nothing but a crosswalk painted on continuous asphalt, only those familiar with Hudson know that West Court Street doesn't just keep going. Even people working at the courthouse, who should know better, now seem emboldened to drive straight into the parking lot with little or no regard for cars approaching on Allen Street.

Instead of assuming this is our problem to solve and installing stop signs, the City of Hudson should insist that the county reinstate the sidewalk and make it clear that the entrance to the parking lot is the entrance to a parking lot and not the continuation of the street. At his press conference on Friday, Mayor Hallenbeck spoke of how the City of Hudson had for years maintained the state boat launch, implying that the state owed us and should therefore provide financial assistance in replacing the Ferry Street Bridge. By the same token, since the City gave Columbia County a 70 percent discount on the building permit fee for the courthouse, reducing the fee from $38,728 to $12,000, why doesn't city government take the position that the county owes us and should therefore help solve this problem, which is after all of their creation?
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