Thursday, July 23, 2020

Of Bridges and Truck Routes

Last night, some things of interest were reported at the Common Council Public Works and Parks Committee meeting. Perhaps of greatest interest is that the project to replace the Ferry Street Bridge, which began in 2016 and whose timeline has been governed by the NYS Department of Transportation, has reached a significant milestone. Rob Perry, superintendent of Public Works, reported that a request has been made to DOT to begin the final design phase. This is the part of the process when public input on the design begins.

Back in October 2018, when Mayor Rick Rector held a public information session about the plans for the bridge, these were the preliminary drawings of the design that were shared.


The PowerPoint presentation from that meeting can be viewed here.

Regarding the truck route and trucks in Hudson, there are two bits of news. Trucks straying off the truck route and taking State Street instead up Columbia Street to make their way up to Green Street have been a problem for a couple of years now. The person who has been most persistent in his complaints about this has been Bill Huston, who lives on State Street. In February, he sent me these pictures of trucks traveling not on the truck route but on State Street. 


Earlier this week, Huston emailed Gossips to announce that his persistence had been rewarded. Huston wrote: "A few weeks ago the tractor trailers on State essentially vanished, as if someone flipped a switch. Like day and night. Then about a week ago I noticed these signs--at Columbia & 3rd, and Green & State."


Perry spoke about the new signage last night, introducing the topic by reminding the committee that altering signage on a state truck route was an involved process, requiring various levels of approval. He commented that truck drivers, relying on GPS to guide them, tended to overlook streetside signage, but, he said, "They have to pay attention to traffic lights." Hanging the truck route signage next to the traffic lights seems to be doing the trick.

Also, regarding the truck route, it was announced last night that there have been five responses to the RFP for a Truck Route Traffic Study. (The responses were due on July 14.) The proposals are now being evaluated.
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4 comments:

  1. Mr. Perry commented that "the new signs for the truck route cost $700." Let's see, 8 signs of varying size but all kinda small, then there's 2 at the bottom of the hill of the 2nd street extension, that totals 10 small signs. They average $70 apiece, Rob? Who are you buying them from, the federal government?

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  2. The most amazing truck statistic of the year was measured by Creighton Manning at the corner of Columbia and 3rd Streets:

    The Colarusso gravel trucks represent only 1.7% of all morning truck traffic, and 1.1% of overall truck numbers in the afternoon.

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    Replies
    1. Exactly, which is why giving away the waterfront and South Bay to ACS DOES NOT solve the truck problem, as much as people who support their application pretend it does.

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