-
Construction set to begin in 2025, awaiting Town Board approval
DELMAR—The Town of Bethlehem will present the completed concept plans for the Delaware Avenue Complete Streets project on Tuesday, Sept. 24, at 6 p.m. at Bethlehem Town Hall.
The Delaware Complete Streets Project will reimagine a 1.3-mile stretch of Delaware Avenue, starting at the Elsmere Avenue and Groesbeck Place intersection and extending east toward the City of Albany.
The public information session will be led by Albany-based CHA Consulting, the project’s engineering design team. The meeting will provide residents with an overview of the new elements and a full construction timeline.
Notable features include road widening to accommodate a pedestrian island and crosswalk near the Snowden Avenue and Salisbury Road intersection, along with traffic-calming measures such as greenery projects in the medians.
Sidewalks on Delaware Avenue from Elsmere Avenue toward the City of Albany will be widened and repaved to meet ADA requirements. Delaware Avenue will also be restriped, reducing the existing 12- and 14-foot lanes to the modern state standard of 11 feet.
A transitional corridor will be added from Winslow Street to the western side of Normanskill Bridge, where the road narrows from two lanes to one. The plan will add a center turn lane and landscaped median barriers.
The new plan addresses concerns raised by Bethlehem residents and business owners about the original “road diet” approach, which would have reduced the current two lanes in each direction along the entirety of Delaware Avenue to one lane. Residents argued that this would cause congestion, limit access to businesses, and increase traffic on residential side streets.
Under the current plan, no lane reductions will occur. Instead, the focus has shifted to promoting street safety by widening shoulders and shortening crosswalk distances. This final concept was informed by public comments at Town Board meetings and more than 60 separate meetings with homeowners and businesses this year.
Complete Streets is part of a larger initiative to create safer streets in town. Another sidewalk renovation project on a separate, mile-long stretch of Delaware Avenue between Cherry Avenue and Adams Street will go out to bid in 2025, with construction slated for 2026.
This mile-long project is a $6.6 million effort, covered almost entirely by state grants, with the town responsible for 8% of the total cost.
These two construction projects continue the trend of sidewalk improvements along Delaware Avenue, begun by the Hamlet Streetscape Enhancement project in 2017. CHA Consulting, which secured the Complete Streets project, also worked on the Enhancement.
More than a half-mile of sidewalks added during the Enhancement between Elsmere Avenue and Adams Street will now be extended on both sides—with Complete Streets covering a 1.3-mile stretch to the east of Elsmere Avenue, and the planned westward mile-long expansion from Adams Street to Cherry Avenue.
“Over the years, we’ve pieced together three grants to completely redesign Delaware Ave.,” said Bethlehem’s Director of Planning Robert Leslie.
Once the Complete Streets construction is finished, the state Department of Transportation will reassess the speed limit along the Delmar section of Delaware Avenue. The DOT is currently negotiating land acquisition with nine property owners near Snowden Avenue to accommodate road widening.
While no livestream of the information session will be available, Leslie is working to secure a recording of the presentation for upload to the project’s website. The completed concept plans and a recording of Leslie’s July presentation to the Town Board can currently be viewed at delavecompletestreets.com.
