By Ashley M. Casey
Staff Writer
The Onondaga County Department of Transportation hosted a presentation Feb. 28 at Salina Town Hall to explain two major roadwork projects that will take place in 2018. The DOT is pairing improvements to Electronics Parkway and upgrading of traffic signals for a total cost of $3.75 million, 80 percent of which will be federally funded.
“Eighty cents on the dollar are coming back from the federal government to your community,” said C&S project engineer Todd Humphrey.
The DOT will mill and repave Electronics Parkway between Kingsdown Drive and Hopkins Road, roughly a 1.1-mile stretch. Humphrey said it has been 10 years since Electronics Parkway was last paved, so it requires resurfacing, new guide rails, freshly painted traffic lines and new signage.
The project will also use green infrastructure in the median and slightly sloping shoulders to improve drainage.
“Any highway engineer is going to tell you any road job is really a drainage job,” Humphrey said, adding the caveat that it is not a full-scale drainage project.
The grass median will be narrowed to create sidewalks, bike lanes and wider shoulders from Seventh North Street to Hopkins Road, Humphrey said. These improvements will benefit pedestrians, cyclists and wheelchair users.
While the bike lanes will be on both sides of the parkway because bicycles must follow the same direction as automobile traffic, half of the sidewalk will be on one side of the parkway and pedestrians will have to cross to the other side to continue on the sidewalk.
“Two sidewalks would be twice as much as the maintenance needed,” Humphrey added.
The second leg of the project will upgrade and wirelessly interconnect nine traffic signals along a 1.9-mile stretch between Old Liverpool Road and West Taft Road and Vine Street.
“Sorry, we won’t be taking them out,” Humphrey said, “but the object of this project is to tie them together so that it will be a smoother progression of flow. It won’t be that stopping and stopping and stopping. You should be able to drive through and see more greens and have less time at red lights.”
Humphrey said streamlining traffic flow leads to less idling, thereby improving the air quality.
The traffic signal portion of the project also improves the parkway for pedestrians. Painted, striped crosswalks will be added, as well as push-buttons and pedestrian signals at intersections.
The county is accepting comments from residents until March 14. Send written comments to Todd Humphrey at C&S Engineers Inc. 499 Col. Eileen Collins Blvd. Syracuse, NY 13212.
To watch a video of the DOT meeting, view the PowerPoint presentation or read a brief summary of the projects, visit eepurl.com/cEn6Ln.
