DELMAR – At Tuesday, Oct. 10, open house at Bethlehem’s Town Hall, the town unveiled a set of potential solutions to pedestrian and traffic issues for the 2.2 mile Kenwood Avenue corridor between Delaware Avenue and the Delmar bypass. The proposed solutions, shared with about 30 attendees, specifically addressed issues elicited through public comments received by the town as part of its Kenwood Avenue Traffic Calming project.
Opening the meeting, Supervisor David VanLuven asked the attendees to consider, as they listened to the proposals, “How serious are we about slowing traffic on Kenwood Avenue?” He stated that traffic enforcement was not the answer. “We will never have enough police officers to enforce the speed limit on all 240 miles of roads in town all the time.”
“If we are really serious about slowing traffic on Kenwood, we need to make changes to the roadway, and the challenge with that is that is a change to the roadway and we typically don’t like change,” said VanLuven.
Joe Cimino, one of the town’s two consultants from CHA Consulting, presented a range of solution. He called some – that could be accomplished by the town alone — “low hanging fruit.” Other proposals represented long range planning projects that would require future capital funding from the federal or state government.
Mike Hurtt, the other CHA consultant present, emphasized that the proposed solutions were made in response to specific concerns raised by the public.
The most significant concern was pedestrian safety. The most common pedestrian safety complaints involved the lack of adequate sidewalks, unsafe driver behavior, inadequate cross walks and buffers between sidewalks and traffic and bicycle accommodation.
At highly trafficked intersections, such as Adams Place, Delmar Place, and the entrance to Magee Park, the consultants proposed installing “mini-roundabouts.” Hurtt explained that a mini-roundabout is a very compact and small central avenue that can be flush with the ground or slightly raised, so it keeps a “compact footprint.” Although compact, it “is a great way to slow traffic because you still have to navigate around the roundabout and slow down,” Hurtt said.
Other proposals involve widening and extending certain sidewalks, like those near Bethlehem Central Middle School. Adding crosswalks, crossing signals, and high visibility markings to crosswalks and even placing “see me” flags at crossings also peppered the proposals.
For bicycle safety along Elsmere Avenue, Hurtt proposed putting sharrows on the road pavement that notifies drivers they share the road with bicycles and that “the bicyclists have a right to be on the road.”
Parking issues at Magee Park at Kenwood Avenue and Route 32 were also addressed. Hurtt said the parking issues there caused obstructed vision when leaving the parking lot. He said people also unsafely walk in the street to get to the park from their cars when they are forced to park on the street due to insufficient parking in the park’s lot. A formal parking lane, together with adding a sidewalk, was proposed so that park users could get from their cars to the park safely.
Some of the proposals, ones again described as “low hanging fruit,” included crosswalks at Dumbarton Drive and the Waterline, sidewalks extended from Oakwood Place to Elsmere Avenue, a cross pad installed at Brookview Avenue, added speed radar warning devices and curb ramps with detectable warning pads on Elsmere Avenue, and shrub trimming to increase visibility, were already implemented over the summer.
Hurtt said that all of these proposals are “just for consideration” but “we are not leaving anything on the table.” A second open house will be scheduled. A complete list of proposals can be found at www.kenwoodavestudy.com.
Van Luven said that the town is “looking for continued public input through Oct. 29 on the project website.”
Bethlehem Director of Planning Rob Leslie said he was pleased with audience reactions to the proposals that were voiced during one-on-one interactions after the presentation.
“I felt everyone was interested in seeing the potential solutions,” he said. “There was a lot of positive energy in the room.”
However, he “would have liked to see more people attend.” Leslie also encouraged the public to participate by viewing the open house videotape and submitting comments on the website.
After the comment period closes on Oct. 29, CHA will prepare a report for the town to use “as a planning study for projects that can be done at the town level and long range planning projects that would require funding,” said Cimino. He hopes their report “would help with that funding.”