Last night, at the informal Common Council meeting, Mayor Kamal Johnson provided an update on the effort to get the truck routes out of Hudson.
Johnson said he had met with the five Hudson supervisors--Claire Cousin (First Ward), Abdus Miah (Second Ward), Michael Chameides (Third Ward), Linda Mussmann (Fourth Ward), and Rick Scalera (Fifth Ward)--and other supervisors--presumably those from Greenport and Claverack--and reported, "The main issue is with the haul road and awaiting that decision." Mussmann has for years been campaigning to get the gravel trucks off city streets by pressuring the Planning Board to approve Colarusso's plan for a paved two-lane road through South Bay.
Alluding to the letter from Our Hudson Waterfront and The Valley Allliance, Johnson said there were some who wanted to separate the issue of the truck routes from the issue of the haul road, but, he said, "Greenport and Claverack are not interested in separating those two issues." He went on to say, "The State is not going to take any sides, so ultimately this comes down to a decision being made by our Planning Board on the haul road, whatever that decision is."
In responding to a question from Councilmember Margaret Morris (First Ward), Johnson said, "The State isn't going to choose between municipalities . . . without some kind of understanding and agreement and partnership between those municipalities, and from my conversations with other county supervisors, they're not in those conversations unless the haul road is decided." Council president Tom DePietro then interjected, "Let's be clear. That's not to say that we are pressuring the Planning Board in any way to make a decision." It is not clear what quid pro quo with other municipalities might be contemplated.
The entire update can be heard here between 5:56 and 9:43.
It is ludicrous to presume that Claverack and Greenport would be inclined to agree to changing the truck route if Colarusso's haul road is approved, inasmuch as the gravel trucks constitute only a tiny fraction of the truck traffic. Much more likely to presume that this is yet another pressure tactic brought about by Colarusso and it's champions.
ReplyDeletespellchecker transformed its to it's. my apologies.
DeleteExactly right, another boondoggle by Colarusso. There is no such thing as a 'haul road'. it's a causeway road, through a designated wetlands and they ignored the permit required to expand it. It is still only one lane and never should be two. And the whole truck route does not depend on that.
DeleteAnteD is exactly right. Resistance to the expanded "haul road" (actually, replacement of a one-lane gravel road with a two-lane, high-capacity truck-way) considerably predates Colarusso's acquisition of its dock in 2014. So there's zero reason to believe that nearby towns will be any more amenable just because Hudson gives Colarusso what it wants. What is far more likely is that the City winds up with the worst of all worlds: a crummy waterfront, trucks still on the streets, and--thanks to vastly increased gravel truck disruption on the waterfront--missed opportunities to create jobs for Hudson through mixed-use economic development. The truck routes and Colarusso's application before the planning board are indeed two separate issues. The first should be lobbied for by the city DESPITE opposition from Claverack and Greenport, and the latter should be approved or declined on its own merits.
ReplyDeleteCorrection (sheesh): What I mean to say at the start is that opposition in surrounding towns to moving the truck route from Hudson predated the Colarusso's Waterfront plans, not opposition to the "haul road." Note to self: Never comment on controversial issues with scrambled brain at the end of a long day.
DeleteGinsburg trucks are a huge user of the truck route along Route 9 and Route 9H - Livingston/Claverack/Greenport/Hudson. The new Alltown Gas Station at Bells Pond expanded their big truck business. These vehicles are not using small city streets. Hudson is responsible for their streets, but I believe the surrounding truck routes are supported by State funding.
ReplyDeleteHow does the new gas station expand truck business? I do not get this argument.
DeleteColarusso could use the haul road the way it is right now for back and forth trips. They could schedule the truck trips and coordinate the traffic using cell phones and radios. It isn't complicated. The trucks are being run through the city as a form of blackmail and pressure tactic to strongarm approval for a two lane paved truck road through the wetland so they can further expand their industrial use of the waterfront. It's absurd, all the city has to do is pass a law prohibiting heavy truck traffic off the truck route and these trucks will have to use the haul road both ways. Simple fix, all you need is the will to do it and some backbone.
ReplyDeleteThis debate has been going on for decades. Hudson has changed, industrial use of the waterfront is no longer acceptable. Shut it down.
Colarusso has already vastly increased its gravel truck traffic at our Waterfront from 14 truck trips/day average in 2015 to 114/day in 2019 (7/9/20 Creighton Manning Truck Study Report). If haul road expansion is approved, Colarusso has proposed up to 284 truck trips (or more)/day up to 250 days/year, and its attorney says the City cannot regulate volume. Further, it reserves the right to continue to use city streets if business demands. Imagine, 284 gravel truck trips a day, up to 250 days per year trapsing to and from our waterfront; that’s 2 truck trips every 5 minutes, causing increased accident risk, not to mention backups/slowdowns, at Amtrak and Routes 9/9G (into Hudson) intersection crossings. Is this really what advocates of approving two-way haul road want? The City should strongly lobby the State to move the Truck Route and not wait for approval (which will never happen) by surrounding counties.
ReplyDeleteI meant surrounding towns, not counties.
DeleteIt should also be noted that Colarusso's proposed 284 truck trips/day does NOT include an additional 12,000 annual truckloads (24,000 truck trips) taking place for gravel sold to retail customers, which currently use Warren St, Park Place, Columbia St, and Green St, to access Neuman Rd. These would add to the volume of truck crossings at the intersection of Routes 9 and 9G.
DeleteFor anyone interested in learning about the history of the truck route and why the haul road and truck route are separate issues and should not be linked, please click on link Carole provides in above article - Letter from Our Hudson Waterfront and Valley Alliance - to the Mayor. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThe City’s approach to this matter might be summarized by something a New York Times op-ed columnist once wrote:
ReplyDelete“The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for. ”
The City seems to be negotiating the State Truck Route from a position of weakness. It is assuming that the County’s rights trump its own, and not standing up for its own interests.
Instead, the City should instead be staking out its own firm position with the State: That the route is a dinosaur relic of bad choices made many decades ago. The route makes zero sense for anyone -- it is deeply unpopular with both the residents of dense urban neighborhoods, *and* unpopular with truckers.
Meanwhie, the City is surrounded by existing highways where the traffic would barely be noticed. The County is behaving with pure selfishness in refusing to make a change that has been called for since at least the late 1990s.
It also should be enlisting officials in the Legislature to back up its case.
Since the City won’t make the case that this is a completely unacceptable situation, and that a change must be made, of course the State is going to sit on its hands. Per the quote above, the City seems willing to settle for less than its people deserve, and will likely wind up with even less than that. The way they are approaching it, they could well wiind up with both a trashed Waterfront *and* the State truck route still going through city streets.
You have to ask why these two issues are being woven together. It's like our leaders are working for Claverack, Greenport and Colarusso rather than Hudson. If they were working for Hudson, they'd be fighting for what's best for the City--which is a robust waterfront district AND streets without completely inappropriate big truck traffic. These are separate issues and both should be solved separately.
ReplyDeleteA small "city" up against a corporate behemoth and huge local employer that does all sorts of work for, is regularly contracted by, and makes much money from said city.
ReplyDeleteUntil those conflicts of interest are erased, I don't see the truck route issues EVER being resolved. Certainly not by a small city with limited resources and little continuity with the people who take up this issues (the many Mayors, the changing city attorneys, the Planning Board members who come and go, and the common council members who don't stick around long. So, the little or no progress in all these years comes as no surprise to me.
It's important to bear in mind that the NY Supreme Court has made it clear the Colarusso has permits and no grandfathered status. They are before the Hudson Planning Board like any other new applicant, and they are seeking two separate permits; one to operate a gravel dump at the waterfront dock, and a second permit to build the new haul road. When we understand the situation in that light, this application is beyond ridiculous. There are no jobs for Hudson residents at the dock, and the company is imposing a huge amount of downside impacts on the City. Further, Colarusso has been a bad actor throughout the review process, filing two lawsuits and refusing to provide basic details of their proposed operation to the Board for 4 years. The root problem here is our weak civic leadership-- any other town with an ounce of self-esteem would have put a stop to this nonsense years ago.
ReplyDeleteI believe Sam is correct: without significant pressure, the political "leaders" won't in fact lead. That pressure has to come from the City (Mayor) and he should shoot for the moon. However, the truck route designation is made by the State so playing politics is part-and-parcel of the process. In this sense, the Mayor is doing the right thing: building consensus among the would-be affected (even if, as Sam posits, the impact would be negligible on those towns). Only agreement among the City and the towns' leaderships will embolden either of our state representatives to do the work necessary to have the truck route moved. The County's interest is purely political but in the sense that the counties only exist to create patronage it shouldn't be surprising that Columbia County perceives its own skin in the game.
ReplyDeleteBecause there is so much gullibility hereabouts, Colarusso has gotten away with a Big Lie for years. The company has been able to frame their haul road proposition as an effort to remove trucks from Columbia St. What is really going on is a scheme to ramp up the volume of gravel production by a huge amount. The company has already admitted that they expect a 471% increase in truck traffic at the waterfront, and they also maintain that the City of Hudson has no authority to put ANY limits on truck volume. A dramatic increase in gravel production will trigger more blasting in the nearby quarry, which shakes the historic structures in the City.
ReplyDeleteIn 1982, the Hudson Common Council made a solemn promise to local sportsmen that there would be no further development in South Bay:
ReplyDelete"The 1982 vote, unanimously agreed to by all nine aldermen present, resolved:
“that the City of Hudson will take no affirmative action seeking to
develop fresh water wetland HS-2 in the South Bay area generally
and more particularly located in a southerly direction from a line
to be placed as evidenced by red monument markers on the
scaled drawing which is annexed hereto...”
The resolution was approved by Council President Albert “Turk” Traver, along with
aldermen Apicella, Barringer, Formichelli, Fowler, Hoffman, and Jablanski. Also in
favor were Alderman Al Kritzman, later the City Treasurer, and Alderman Bill Allen,
later elected Mayor."
Nothing the Mayor or anyone else does is going to build consensus among the County municipalities to relocate the truck route; haul road or no haul road. It's as true now as it was 30 years ago. This is precisely the reason that the State has not only the right but the duty to intercede and establish what is feasible and practicable for use of the State highways, notwithstanding the financial and political sway of the privileged NIMBY contingency, and the red herring of Colarusso's haul road which they seek to employ for their own ends.
ReplyDeleteEarly in the review process (2016) the Hudson Planning Board asked Colarusso to provide basic traffic data (routes, intersections, operating hours, volume, etc.) This is the kind of information that any agency would need to reach an informed decision, but Colarusso refused, claiming that it was private, proprietary information. Sadly, our Planning Board lacked the leadership or legal counsel with sufficient resolve to tell the company to take a hike, and the review process went on for years thereafter with an ill-informed Board. Then Colarusso filed a desperate Article 78 lawsuit, claiming that somehow they should be exempt from any review whatsoever. The NY Supreme Court tossed the suit out and stated clearly that the company has no operational or grandfathered status. Some years later the Planning Board finally found its backbone and forced the company to cough up a proper truck study, and it revealed the truth-- the haul road proposal isn't about removing trucks from Columbia St., but rather it's about a massive uptick in truck volume on the Hudson waterfront.
ReplyDeleteColarusso has run up hundreds of thousands of $$ in legal and engineering expenses, and it has now become clear why-- they fear that their application would never survive an honest and thorough review.
Why do our officials not fight for their own constituents? I'm willing to bet this operation pays little in taxes to Hudson since they are located in Greenport and I'm also willing to bet most of their employees also live outside the city limits.
ReplyDelete