Given the historic flooding in South Carolina, talking about two spots in Albany County that routinely have to be shut down when it rains hard for a few hours seems trivial. But the fact is, something needs to be done to mitigate the problem.
The two spots in question are Western Avenue in front of Stuyvesant Plaza in Guilderland and the railway underpass on Central Avenue near the Albany-Colonie line. Both spots flooded again last week when we had one day of steady, heavy rain, forcing traffic on the busy thoroughfares to be re-routed. Thankfully it was only one day.
As Capital District residents are well aware, this has been a long-standing issue along these two state roads. The sad part is, not much has been done to fix these problem areas. The Town of Guilderland commissioned a study in 2009 to address the drainage problem around that section of Western Avenue and the surrounding neighborhood, with the findings released in 2012. But to date, no work has been done to mitigate the problem. Still, that’s more than what the Town of Colonie has done about the situation under the railway overpass on Central Avenue — even though that has been an issue for many years.
Whether or not our municipalities draw up plans of action, it’s still up to New York State to put these plans into motion. Herein lies the problem: the state is far more concerned with grander projects such as replacing the Tappan Zee Bridge on the Thruway than it is with relatively minor issues such as a small section of a local roadway that routinely floods. It’s not because the state doesn’t care; it’s because there are items of greater importance to work on first. But, Guilderland and Colonie can’t do the work because Western Avenue and Central Avenue are state roads and under the jurisdiction of the state Department of Transportation for maintenance.
What can be done to catch the state’s attention to these local issues? We can pressure our town officials and our representatives in the state Legislature to get money approved to fix these long-standing drainage problems, so portions of two busy roads won’t have to be shut down the next time it rains hard. This is not only a matter of convenience, but also an economic issue, since the flooding redirects traffic away from area businesses — especially Stuyvesant Plaza. The longer the problems exist, the more harm it does.
Again, our problems pale in comparison to what other East Coast residents have experienced in the last week, and we will not get into the reasons why so much rain has fallen in a prolonged period of time. But, the drainage issues on Western Avenue and Central Avenue need to be addressed once and for all. They’ve been allowed to persist for too long a period of time.
