 |
| Photo: Julie Metz |
COPYRIGHT 2018 CAROLE OSTERINK
Friday, February 23, 2018
Truck Route Woes
We don't need any more evidence that trucks should not be routed through our city, but if we did, this would be it.
Sometime around 10:45 this morning, there was a collision involving two trucks and a car at the intersection of Third and Union streets.
COPYRIGHT 2018 CAROLE OSTERINK
COPYRIGHT 2018 CAROLE OSTERINK
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
And we don't need any more evidence that the Youth Center (the building in the background) is in the wrong place! With or without trucks we put our kids on the busiest road in town.
ReplyDelete1.
ReplyDeleteOf course 3rd Street is a NY State truck route and to the left is an aggregate-laden Colarusso truck.
While the Colarusso company probably will never discontinue its use of the State truck route, it also won't agree to remove its trucks from local streets west of 3rd Street unless and until it obtains the permissions it desires from City government.
To put it another way, rather than agree to take the very last steps to complete the company's nearly-finished route across the South Bay, which is the ENVIRONMENTALLY PREFERRED ALTERNATIVE, the company deliberately holds the city hostage with its continued use of local city streets.
Notwithstanding the confusion sewn by the usual shills who pretend not to understand the circumstances (e.g., County Superintendent Mussman not only understands, she largely created the circumstances we find ourselves in), the company simply refuses to contemplate the City's preferred alternative to aggregate trucks using local streets.
2.
ReplyDeleteFor the company and its shills, it's just too easy to spin a false either/or choice between the status quo and the company's desired expansion plan.
What the company should do instead is acknowledge the established parameters of the City's preferred alternative which was worked out with the previous landowner, and which the Common Council proceeded to codify in its 2011 zoning amendments.
With that sequence in mind, was the company taking a known risk when it bought the property in 2014 on the off-chance that, by now, nobody would understand the Zoning Code? (You gotta admit, they weren't far off!)
Either way, someone's private investment risk is not the City's problem, though it accounts for the importance of the either/or tale vis-a-vis the company's business plans.
What the City's Zoning Code does promote is the two-way use of the existing South Bay causeway, and the landowner's predominant use of the causeway as soon as the crossings at State-routes 9 and 9-G can be installed.
To repeat, as soon as the Colarusso company CHOOSES to install DOT-approved crossings at the two State truck routes, then scenes like the one pictured above will become less likely in Hudson.
But why has the city tolerated being held hostage to a private landowner's either/or narrative for so long? It's not only a false choice, but it obliterates the means for achieving the city's long-term interests which a previous Common Council actually codified in the Zoning Code.
The simple and embarrassing truth is that, out of sheer ignorance, successive City governments and officials have fallen sway to the stories of Superintendent Mussman, et al, while the new landowner never liked the City's official alternative (which it bought into anyway ...).
The City has been a hostage to Ms. Mussman's narrative for long enough. To arrive at the obvious solution which was laboriously planned between 2009 and 2011, it would behoove the City to explain not only how its long-overlooked alternative was meant to work, but also that we are now very close to achieving it.
The City's alternative, which is also the environmental alternative, is to USE THE EXISTING CAUSEWAY FOR TWO-WAY TRAFFIC.
Can it be stated more simply than that? Watch, though, as people will continue to misunderstand (groan).
regardless of what caused this accident:
ReplyDeleteare there double yellow lines on this portion of the city's truck route? (I think not) Columbia Street has no middle lines, Green Street has none. This is wrong. All drivers, ESPECIALLY TRUCKS, should know where the middle of the road is and when they are crossing over the middle.
ps -- mr. unheimlick: brevity in your comments will get you more attention.
Streets should have lines. Brief enough?
DeleteIf comments are too long for you, then don't read them.
Mussman again, what a fine mess she got us into. Mussman look out for one person, herself....
ReplyDeleteI don't care about brevity, but I do care about meaning. And the significant meaning of this incident -- and the graphic picture -- is what it says about what we care about our town's children. As a card-carrying member of the South Bay Task Force, I cede no ground to anyone on the Colarusso truck traffic problem, but it is time -- beyond time! -- that our progressive little town start paying attention to our kids! The Youth Center at THIS location is a huge problem; the dangers to our children far greater than our precious fights over trucks on the river. C'mon, folks, start standing up for the safety of our children.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad, then, that our meanings agree.
DeleteThe city's single solution (from 2011) solves all problems but one, the new (2014) landowner's fixation on maximizing its profits at the city's expense.
I believe the City of Hudson can add center lines to its NYS Truck Routes...
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know all the facts to the picture above? The tractor trailer to he right had ran the redlight and struck the car. The truck to the left was alert enough to see what was unfolding and stayed a safe distance from the accident. The truck to the left was lucky to not also be involved. Only the the truck to the right was cited a ticket for running the red light. I feel it is unfair to say two trucks were involved in the collision when it was only one.
ReplyDeleteTo be clear, Sean1320 is directing his comment to the Gossips post only, which stated that two trucks were "involved."
DeleteNothing in the subsequent comments touches on that question.
Was anyone hurt?
ReplyDeleteNo, thank goodness. According to reports, although the car was totaled, the driver of the car was unhurt.
DeleteI love how everyone see's that a Colarusso truck is in the picture and starts attacking Colarusso. The fact of the matter is the Colarusso truck has absolutely nothing to do with this accident other then the fact that the truck happened to be there when the accident happened.
ReplyDeleteActually Herb, I had raised the issue to ask what that truck was doing there at all.
DeleteAny opportunity to ask this question publicly should not be wasted. It reminds us of an ongoing controversy for the city, the facts of which are being distorting by certain elected officials.
You ignored the question altogether, which becomes another fact of the matter.