DELMAR — Lost in Wednesday night’s three-hour marathon meeting of the Bethlehem Town Board were the Town’s initial steps to solve pressing issues surrounding one of the community’s busiest, and narrowest, roadways.
Kenwood Avenue is one of the town’s oldest thoroughfares, stretching across the map from Slingerlands to the Delmar By-Pass. A stone survey marker adjacent from the Bethlehem Central Middle School once read “1929,” a date in which most of the surrounding neighborhood was built. The school itself opened as the community’s high school in 1930. Everything around it — front yards, sidewalks and roadway — was built to accommodate contemporary living, leaving little to no room between today’s pedestrians and motorists.
Last August, a woman was clipped by the side mirror of a passing pick up truck. The issue spurned an argument against changing traffic patterns on Delaware Avenue, urging policy makers to focus more on Kenwood.
“Kenwood Avenue is a residential road with complex pedestrian and traffic speeding issues,” Town Supervisor David VanLuven said Wednesday evening before the Town Board unanimously chose to pursue steps that will develop the Kenwood Avenue Traffic Calming Study.
The Town agreed to purchase a $72,000 service agreement with CHA Consulting, Inc. The Albany-based engineering consulting and construction management firm is expected to initiate data collecting prior the end of this year, before approaching the public for ideas.
The scope of the project appears to break Kenwood Avenue into two sections; from Delaware Avenue to Elsmere Avenue, and from Elsmere Avenue to the Delmar By-Pass.
“Pedestrian safety is the primary issue, as the sidewalk is immediately adjacent to the road,” Robert Lelsie states in his memo to the Town Board. The town director of economic development and planning added, “The sidewalk is heavily used by children walking and riding bikes to the middle school and St. Thomas School. [Between Elsmere Avenue and the Delmar By-Pass], vehicle speeds and volumes are the concern, along with the lack of sidewalks.”
The Town had selected CHA for the consulting project in a process that included bids from GPI and Creighton Manning, the latter of whom was hired to gather information on last year’s Delaware Avenue Road Diet and Complete Streets project.
Initial work is to include collecting and evaluating traffic data. It will later include public engagement through meetings and an interactive project website before a final report identifying recommended solutions is prepared.
