About 4,000 feet of paved path will stretch through the hamlet of Guilderland Center next summer, which is a sight several residents have waited years to see.
The Guilderland Town Board on Tuesday, Sept. 16, unanimously approved awarding the Route 146 Pedestrian Safety Improvement Project contract to the low bidder, Peter Luizzi & Bros. Construction, for nearly $430,175. Town Board members similarly approved contracting with Creighton Manning to oversee and inspect the project for $117,500. The project is technically installing a paved pathway — not a sidewalk, because a sidewalk designation requires a curb.
“The project is coming in less than what we originally budgeted,” said Town Supervisor Ken Runion.
The project was originally budgeted at $842,000, but has come in at nearly $730,000. The town is responsible for 20 percent of the project cost, which is nearly $146,000.
Guilderland was awarded funding for the project several years ago through the Capital District Transportation Committee’s Transportation Improvement Program, but Runion previously said the funds only recently surfaced.
Hamlet residents might see construction starting soon, or the contractor could wait until after the snow melts. The project must be completed by June of next year.
“As part of the bidding process, it is up to the contractor as to when they start the construction of the sidewalks, so they could begin construction this fall or in the spring,” said Runion. “I’ve asked Creighton Manning to talk to the contractor to see if they could get started in the fall.”
Peter Luizzi & Bros. Construction was only $18,000 less than the next lowest bid from James H. Maloy, Inc. The highest bid was from Bast Hatfield Construction for about $670,000.
Susan Wheeler-Weeks, a member of the hamlet’s former Study Advisory Committee, said the community was primarily concerned about slowing down traffic through the hamlet.
Hamlet residents were surprised to hear in February that the sidewalk proposal had turned into a pathway.
“We’re very concerned that the curbs have been eliminated, and we are also concerned we don’t hear anything about slowing traffic,” Wheeler-Weeks said at the Feb. 26 public meeting on the project.
Susan Torelli, project engineer for Creighton Manning, had agreed curbs “visually” slow traffic down, but she said the pathway would have a similar “visual affect.”
Available funding scaled back the project to a pathway, because installing a curb would require drainage infrastructure to be constructed. Work crews also would have had to cut into the existing roadway.
The town had studied car crash data from the hamlet for 2005 to 2008 and discovered the area around the corner of School Road and Route 146 had elevated occurrences of crashes. Around 24 occurred in the proximity of the intersection.
Town officials previously reduced the speed limit along Route 146 through the hamlet to 35 mph to ease safety concerns.
The pathway would run along the south side of Route 146 from just beyond where Depot Road connects to it and stops at the nursing home. There would be a small portion of sidewalk on the north side from School Road to the Helderberg Reformed Church, because the infrastructure is already in place.
The project is part of the Town of Guilderland Neighborhood Master Plan for the Guilderland Center Hamlet, on which Creighton Manning served as the transportation consultant.