Dozing drivers can be alerted or awoken by rumble strips to avoid accidents, but a recent installation has adjacent residents also waking up from a sound sleep.
Richard Matthews, an Amsterdam Road resident on Route 5, spoke on behalf of fellow concerned neighbors living alongside the recently installed rumble strips during the Glenville Town Board meeting on Wednesday, March 21. The rumble strips were installed when the state Department of Transportation resurfaced Route 5 during last summer and fall. Matthews asked the board to issue a resolution supporting residents and urging the DOT to remove strips and lower the speed limit to 40 mph.
“When the cars or trucks in our case hit them it makes a very, very loud noise,” Matthews said. “This is a big concern for the residents of Amsterdam Road.”
The strips were installed from where the double-yellow center line starts after the I-890 intersection on Route 5 and continue up the roadway to just before the second entrance to the Glenville Business and Technology Park. The speed limit is reduced from 45 to 30 mph near the end of the strips as motorists enter theVillage of Scotia by Maalwyck Park.
Matthews said a petition was circulated among affected residents, with all but one neighbor signing to oppose the rumble strips.
“They have a lot of stories about how the noise was bothering them,” Matthews said, “getting awakened at night by trucks hitting it and one person said the dogs bark when the trucks hit it.”
He said the rumble strips are impacting the residents’ quality of life “very profoundly.”
According to the Federal Highway Administration, the average noise created inside a passenger vehicle from the strips is 60 decibels. The FHWA also said the increase of noise inside the vehicle results in a larger increase in noise outside the vehicle.
In the FHWA’s Technical Advisory for Center Line Rumble Strips, it said: “The noise produced by vehicles encountering the rumble strips is generally not pleasant to residents along the roadway. While residents would not normally complain about a rumble noise that averted a traffic crash, most rumble noise results from incidental contact where the vehicle might not have been heading toward a crash.”
Matthews attested to such incidental contact being heard.
“We constantly hear people driving down these rumble strips from where they start until we can’t hear them anymore,” he said.
Matthews claims there wasn’t any public outreach prior to the installation, as recommended by the FHWA, and he said residents would have rather had them lower the speed limit if there is a safety concern.
“I don’t think we have any accidents there in the past six or seven years,” he said.
The DOT issued a short statement in response to The Spotlight’s inquiries about the rumble strips on Amsterdam Road, and declined to comment further.
“Safety is our first priority. This is one of our first applications of the centerline rumble strips, which have been proven to reduce head-on crashes along roads like Amsterdam Road through Glenville,” DOT spokeswoman Carol Breen said in an email.
The DOT also resurfaced Amsterdam Road west of Vley Road, continuing along Route 5, but Matthews said there weren’t center line rumble strips installed along the 55 mph roadway.
“We are calling on you to join us with a resolution and ask you to please do that for the residents,” he said to the Town Board.
Town Supervisor Christopher Koetzle said he would have Highway Superintendent Thomas Coppola look at the roadway and the board would discuss it at its next works session meeting on April 11. Koetzle said he would also reach out to the DOT before the meeting.
