The City of Hudson is looking to improve safety at intersections throughout the city.
Toward that end, the City is asking residents and frequent visitors to the city to complete a survey to help prioritize the intersections most in need of safety improvements. That survey can be found here.
UPDATE: Mayor Joe Ferris shared the following statement "for clarification purposes," no doubt in response to comments suggesting that government by survey is akin to abdication of leadership:
Making the much-needed long-term changes to dangerous intersections in our city requires money. These kind of projects typically require grant funding from either New York State or the federal government. When applications are being considered at the state or federal level, community engagement is one of the determining factors for who does and does not receive funding. As much as I wish that the City could cover the cost of these improvements today, we cannot. Community engagement efforts like this survey and follow-up studies are a required first step in permanently fixing dangerous roads and intersections.
Lowest hanging fruit: make Front and Warren and three way stop. It’s kinda insane it already isn’t. Just costs two stop signs. Done ✅
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DeleteGovernment by survey is akin to abdication of leadership. Union Jack is correct — just look around, see what needs doing and do it. Second street one way, Union, too.
ReplyDeleteBut real traffic improvement - dealing with the truck route - can’t be surveyed to a solution. That requires actual political and moral leadership between the City and at least one of our state reps, neither of whom have the will or chops (it seems) to do the actual work. Perhaps if our mayor pushed publicly he could shame one of them to actually do something besides publish press releases and issue meaningless proclamations.
I’m afraid the mayor is not going to publicly shame the state reps since he seems to want to be at every photo op they’re in. Doesn’t seem to want to step on any toes on the path to Albany. This is why a city manager would be nice. To finally have a chief executive who’s focused on keeping their current job in Hudson and not a stepping stone to a career in Albany and DC. It’s like DeBlasio at the Iowa State Fair
DeleteThe survey is missing some obvious ones. Like Front and Warren, as I’ve mentioned, or State and Fifth; where people zooming down the State Street Speedway™️ blow past the stop sign, especially dangerous as families and seniors walk to the library. A traffic signal is likely needed. Or at least flashing crosswalk.
ReplyDeleteThe city should prioritize the lowest hanging fruit by what’s cheapest and quick to fix: adding signs ($100s), new traffic signals (tens of $1,000s), then finally redoing intersections like the triangles (millions $$$).
We have been without a Police Commissioner for several months, so our Police Chief is doubling as the Acting Police Commissioner. Yet, Mishanda Franklin has said publicly on at least two occasions (before Shane Bower left his post as police Commissioner) that the police chief cannot get traffic control devices installed that HPD ultimately enforces. She concluded (and was correct): This would be a conflict of interest.
ReplyDeleteYet the only city official that is allowed to get traffic control devices -- THE ONLY OFFICIAL! -- is the police commissioner. At least according to our city code. So, right now, is it a conflict of interest for Mishanda Franklin to be making decisions about traffic control devices? Of course it is!
Everything is a mess (including our code), and so what you see instead of city officials making decisions are endless surveys or the hiring of outside contractors and consulting firms charging us an arm and a leg for things we should be dealing with ourselves and perhaps even the police commissioner should be handling. Take the most recent of the two parking consultants the city hired, the one from Long Island who worked with Jen Belton and the Parking Study Committee. Everything he did for us, everything he suggested was either ignored, sidelined or never implemented. It was a complete waste of time and money. But, of course, it had to happen since City Hall is such an organizational mess. There is no one managing the city's affairs properly or at all. So, instead of filling out the survey, go to one of the mayor's latest round of Town Hall meetings and ask him what he's accomplished since the last round two months ago.
Hudson's streets have a traffic problem - and residents already know exactly what needs fixing. Trucks and speeding cars blow through intersections daily, failing to yield to pedestrians, rattling buildings, and making corners like Park and Warren feel genuinely unsafe. With a pediatric center already drawing families to upper Warren Street, and new hotels and the Crescent Building on the way, the pressure is only going to grow.
ReplyDeleteThe City has approved a traffic study and is now asking residents to fill out a survey to identify the worst intersections. Both are worth doing, but as one commenter put it, this starts to feel like "government by survey," a substitute for leadership rather than an expression of it. Residents have already flagged obvious gaps: Front and Warren isn't even a three-way stop yet, and State and Fifth sends cars flying past a stop sign near the library, where families and seniors are on foot daily. These aren't mysteries requiring study. They're oversights requiring action.
The good news is the path forward isn't complicated. Some fixes cost hundreds of dollars - a stop sign, better signage. Others cost tens of thousands - a traffic signal or flashing crosswalk. Major infrastructure comes last. Start cheap, start now, and build from there. The 25mph speed limit already exists citywide. Enforcing it consistently doesn't require a survey or a study. It requires will - and that starts with Mayor Ferris directing the Hudson Police Department to make speed enforcement a visible, immediate priority. Not after the study comes back. Today.
And with another round of town halls on the horizon, there's a ready-made opportunity - bring the police chief and the Department of Public Works to the podium, let residents ask questions directly about both enforcement and the state of our streets and sidewalks, and turn a listening session into an accountability one.
I seem to get clipped with the camera generated speeding tickets nearly every time I'm in Albany. Why doesn't the City invest in some of these units? I imagine they pay for themselves quickly.
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