(Credit: Steve Thurston, 2023)
(Credit: Steve Thurston, 2023)
Michael King a former New York City planner and owner of the “Traffic Calmer” consultancy told the Saratoga Springs City Council Tuesday evening that Union Avenue from East Avenue to Congress Park has room enough right now for a bicycle lane.
“We could go out and stripe bike lanes tomorrow,” he said to the board during a short presentation regarding the city’s Enhancing Union Avenue project, “and no one would be happy.”
Enhancing Union Avenue is project the city is considering as a complement to another project set to begin this spring.
The New York State Department of Transportation will resurface Union Avenue, widen the shoulders and create pedestrian and bike lanes along Union Avenue from I-87 Northway Exit 14 to East Avenue in front of the Saratoga Race Course main gate, according to the DOT website. DOT expects to finish in 2024.
The city’s project would take the restoration the rest of the way from East Avenue to Union Avenue’s terminus at Congress Park.
King said that Union Avenue on that eastern stretch is 70 feet wide, but the four lanes of traffic currently there need between 40 and 44 feet, leaving 26 to 30 feet for a bike lane and tree-lined buffers, if needed, without encroaching on current front lawns.
He called that basic outline of what could be possible the “road diet” or the amount of land the plan would “eat.”
He said he conducted a simple review of that stretch of the roadway and looked at traffic data, thinking about the problems the city was trying to solve, categorizing the needs into Safety, Equity, Beauty and Civic needs.
“The analysis suggests that the road diet will work,” he told the board near the end of his presentation.
He gave the presentation shortly after a few dozen people spoke during public comment on the matter.
“We are not making any decision,” Mayor Kim told the 100 or so people who had come to speak and listen. The only decisions made, Kim said, were that DOT was moving forward with their project — and the city had no control of that — and that the city is prioritizing bike travel as part of its complete streets initiative, a decision made by the previous board. No decision on what, if anything, to do on Union Avenue was to be decided.
Of the two dozen or so people who spoke, the vast majority were in favor of the bike lane, with caveats. Most said the city had to make sure the bike lanes connected to other bike lanes already in the city; this might include creating more bike lanes to complete the network. They also said they wanted any improvements to reflect the historic nature of the “gateway” to Saratoga Springs.
Many said they heard a plan that the lanes would drop from four lanes to three. They feared the traffic back-ups and snarls this would cause.
However, King was ready for this when he spoke saying that the design already means that turning traffic blocks lanes from moving fluidly. Better design can fix these problems with fewer lanes, he said.
During the public hearing, Tom Potter with the Historic Union Avenue Neighborhood Association, delivered a petition with 140 signatures asking the city to pump the brakes on the project and to study the idea fully before making any decision.
“We cannot afford to play high stakes poker with one of our community’s greatest assets. We, as taxpayers, ask for your support and underscore the need to take our time, as a community, to get this right,” the change.org petition says.
The city will pick this up again in February.
Correction: The original draft of this story made reference to Exit 15 of the I-87 Northway. Union Avenue intersects the Northway at Exit 14. We apologize for the error.