What Happened at the Dec. 13th Board Meeting

As everyone knows the wheels of government move slower than molasses in January, and I apologize for not getting back to you sooner with an explanation. But in the last few days I’ve finally found the “language” to describe what happened at the Town Board Meeting last Tuesday night. So let’s start with what we learned from Paul McAnany, the Regional Design Engineer during his presentation at the last Board Meeting.

Paul began by telling the audience that the funding for Route 15, the 20 million from the federal government secured by Randy Kuhl and the 30 million from the passage of the New York State Transportation Bond Act was no guarantee that the entire six miles of Route 15 would be completed. Of course, this put the audience on edge because what he was saying was the direct opposite of what we all believed to be the case in light of the recently passed New York State Transportation Bond Act. Many in the audience questioned Paul about the Bond Act wanting to know why the money supposedly earmarked for the Route 15 Improvement Project was suddenly “not available” according to him. Everyone in the audience knew that Route 15 was included in the Bond Act’s project list which I posted on the blog several weeks ago. That’s why we voted for it. Paul also led us to believe that the 20 million from the federal government was unavailable to us also. So you can understand why we were “confused”.

After a round of key questioning by members of the audience, Paul began to clarify what he meant. In short, Paul explained that the money the “Lindley Route 15 Task Force”, our own lobbying group, Bill Canfield, Fran Woodring and a host of other people who have worked to secure for the completion of Route 15, was considered “leverage” to acquire even more funding for the project “in stages”. Paul went on to explain that this is the procedure once a project is considered “a committed project” and used the I-86 project to illustrate his point. He said that once the I-86 project began the money needed to complete the “entire” project was not in place. Paul said, it never is and it’s up to the politicians pushed by lobby groups (us) to continually “look” for more funding from the state or federal government to finish projects.

The next question from the audience was: “Is Route 15 a committed project?” This is where it got confusing again. Paul stated that the “first mile” was committed because of the deal New York made with Pennsylvania years ago to provide a transition mile into New York. Funds are available. He then said that the funding for the “design phase” of the project for the second mile to the sixth mile in Lindley was “Not” allocated as of yet and it was up to us to lobby the politicians to get the money for the design phase, a phase that would take around “three years” to complete. Now we all thought the six miles to be completed “were ALREADY designed”. Not true, according to Paul. We also thought that the passage of the NYS Bond Act made Route 15 a “committed project”. Not necessarily true, according to Paul.

Then, during the middle of all the confusing information, Paul casually mentioned that the “Kuhl Road Detour” was well underway as if that would give us hope that NYSDOT was “actively” working on the project. Now this is the part where I should recuse myself because I’m intimately involved, but I won’t for the sake of getting this information out, but it was quite clear from the audience’ reaction that no one knew about the imminent construction of the Kuhl Road Detour, including Larry and me. The state plans to turn Kuhl Road into a detour when the first mile of the four-lane is “connected” to the two-lane. The state plans to re-route 15,000 vehicles a day, both northbound and southbound onto Kuhl Road for six to eight weeks while the “connector” is being built. They plan to build a “temporary bridge” on Kuhl Road that will be taken out WHEN ROUTE 15 IS COMPLETED, not after the connector is finished in six to eight weeks as was reported during the board meeting. Kuhl Road becomes the local access road to Lawrenceville. Traffic volume on Kuhl Road is expected to increase a thousand fold as it will carry the combined traffic of 80% of all local and county roads in the Town of Lindley to get to Lawrenceville. Traffic from the surrounding areas outside Lindley is expected to use Kuhl Road to also avoid the “treacherous funnel effect” of a four-lane choking down into a two-lane on Route 15. Kuhl Road will become the second most heavily traveled road in the Town of Lindley aside from Route 15.

NYSDOT is telling residents on Kuhl Road right at this moment that the detour and bridge are temporary for the duration of six to eight weeks. This is simply not true. After the “connector is built”, the two-lane section of Route 15 that runs into Lawrenceville will be barricaded, and all access to residents living past the connector will be shut off. The Kuhl Road Bridge MUST remain open until the entire six miles of Route 15 are completed when “old Route 15 would re-open” and even if money were allocated tomorrow the project would not be completed in less than 15 years.

The absolute kicker to this dilemma for all affected is the fact that NYSDOT designed a “detour and access road to Lawrenceville” NEXT to the connector paralleling Route 15 where it would not adversely affect anyone and serve the same purpose as the Kuhl Road Detour. NYSDOT “abandoned” this design because they were worried about safety for their construction workers for the six to eight weeks while the connector was being built. Instead, they chose to adversely affect nine residents on Kuhl Road and spend thousands more than what the detour and access road next to the connector would have cost.

Basically, this is what we learned at meeting. What I’ve reported about the Kuhl Road Detour came from conversations with NYSDOT officials that took place after the December 13th meeting. This is an emerging story and I will keep everyone updated when I feel comfortable that I’m getting “correct” information.