By Sarah Hall
Editor
The long-neglected Chestnut-Church Street corridor will soon be much more navigable, thanks to a $1 million state grant the village of North Syracuse received last year.
The grant, part of $112.2 million in money distributed throughout the state to support bicycle and pedestrian enhancements and improve air quality across New York, funds North Syracuse’s Complete Streets Corridor Project. With a 20 percent match from the village, the total cost of the project is about $1.25 million.
The village held a hearing on the project Monday, Oct. 28, to discuss the impact of the roadwork with Church and Chestnut Street residents. Lead Engineer Dory Marsh of Clough Harbor and Associates Engineering explained the details of the construction as well as the proposed timetable.
Work will include:
- Widening the Church-Chestnut Street corridor by 13 feet on each side from Belmore Drive to Randall Terrace
- Creating a continuous west-to-east network of five-foot-wide sidewalks with ADA-compliant ramps along the north side of the corridor
- Improving the crosswalk at Centerville Place/Church Street and South Bay Road to make it ADA-compliant
- Adding high-visibility crosswalks at Chestnut and Grove streets, Church Stree3t and Sixth Avenue and Chestnut just east of the fire station
Marsh said the widening of the roads is necessary to make it so that bicycles and motorists can share the road. The project is not, however, adding specific bicycle lanes.
“Bike lanes are independent lanes and are striped as such. They have to be five feet wide in addition to the roadway itself. That’s not what we’re doing,” he said. “What we’re constructing are what we call shared lanes— wide enough to make it so that bicyclists and motorists can ride together and not force motorists to cross the double yellow to pass bicyclists.”
Marsh said the new roads will look more like the roads in the towns of Clay and Cicero.
“You’re going to have a nicer road,” he said.
Those sidewalks that hadn’t been recently replaced would be upgraded; all sidewalks on the south side of the corridor would be pulled out and replaced with trees. This raised an objection with the dozen or so neighbors in attendance at the meeting, who expressed concerns about the safety of the proposal. They asked why new sidewalks couldn’t be installed on both sides of the street.
According to Village of North Syracuse Mayor Gary Butterfield, the answer is simple: the village can’t afford it.
“We have limited funds and we’re doing the best we can,” Butterfield said.
He pointed out that most of the village’s amenities are on the north side of the corridor — Kennedy Pool, North Area Meals on Wheels, NOPL at North Syracuse.
“Overall, in the big picture, it makes sense to keep the sidewalk on the north side,” he said. “And the sidewalks on the south side of Church Street are in pretty bad shape. We’re thrilled with money and we’ll take it as far as it will let us.”
Marsh noted that the village will try to get additional grants for further work in the future.
This project, Marsh said, would likely take about three to four weeks, once the roadwork itself starts. But first, the Onondaga County Water Authority (OCWA) will be going into the same area to replace water lines.
“That’s not part of this project, but we’re working with them,” he said. “We are coordinating with them, trying to minimize the disruption for everyone in the village.”
OCWA will go in once the roads have been dug up to replace the water lines in the area. Once they’re finished, repaving will begin. Marsh said the work should start in the spring.
“The condition of the road is in pretty rough shape,” he said. “It’s going to be much better.”
