A Road to Nowhere
Throughout the 40th Senate District, from Sleepy Hollow in Westchester County to Beekman in Dutchess County, many of our roads are without sidewalks or streetlights.
We are a district of dense population and rural splendor, Hudson views and borders shared with Connecticut and the New York City reservoir system. We have town and state roads traversing the district, some in good condition, many needing repairs. Our roads are often shared by cyclists, walkers, runners and of course, cars and trucks.
Each morning I am out pounding the pavement for my daily five miles. Depending how early it is, I am met with 18 wheelers, speeding cars and an occasional bicycle. I wear a reflective vest, as it is often dark, and in my neck of the woods, there are no street lights, sidewalks or shoulders…so I try to stay on the white line.
Our communities need to improve on road safety and shared road usage. This is both a quality of life issue and a safety issue. We cannot continue unbridled development without vastly improving our infrastructure. Many of our roads were first built in the 19th Century, some even before that.
Our mass transit in most of the senate district doesn’t even exist and so we are dependent on cars and cars are dependent on roads…and the population keeps growing and the roads are taxed and the funds are not there to repair them. We have no leadership on transportation in Albany and that has to change.
This morning I was passing out campaign literature for candidates up for election on November 7th. When I left the Cross River train station, heading east, I saw cars lined up for miles heading to I684. When I started south and hit Route 35, the traffic stretched even further. This is not conducive to a high quality of life, longevity of the roads or safe conditions for pedestrians and cyclists.
Cars were speeding down every available side street I passed trying to avoid traffic on the main thoroughfares, competing with school buses for road space. It is time the cities, villages and hamlets across the 40th Senate District had an official assessment of road use, with a plan to improve what has become over the years an unpleasant and dangerous situation.
As a child I used to run on some of these same streets and would count cars on a stretch of road…I would get up to about 20 over the course of a few miles. In that same stretch of road a few years ago I stopped counting at 200 vehicles. Our roads are not designed for this and it is taking its toll on all of us.
We know we can to do better.
