Don’t blame the town

Printable View

March 15th, 2019, 03:14 PM
Lee Chowaniec

Don’t blame the town

I am hearing that residents living in Town of Lancaster subdivisions off of William Street are complaining about the condition of a road that had been repaved but several years ago – as well as road conditions on Aurora Street and Como Park Boulevard. They are blaming the town for the infrastructure potholes and failures. These individuals are missing the fact that all three roads mentioned are county roads, and as such the responsibility of the County Highway Department.

The listing of county and state roads can be found on the town’ website – under the Highway Department menu:

COUNTY ROADS

• Aurora Street
• Bowen Road
• Cemetery Road
• Central Avenue/Harris Hill Road
• Como Park Boulevard
• Gunnville Road
• Hall Road
• Lake Avenue from Village Line to William Street
• Nichter Road
• Pavement Road
• Penora Street
• Pleasantview Drive
• Ransom Road
• Schwartz Road
• Stony Road
• Townline Road
• Westwood Road
• William Street

STATE ROADS

• Broadway
• Genesee Street
• Transit Road
• Walden Avenue

Not only can’t residents differentiate between Town of Lancaster, County, and State Roads, they can’t differentiate between Town of Lancaster and Village of Lancaster Roads and/or realize that both have their own highway departments.

William Street

Residents have the right to complain about William Street road condition between Transit Road and Aurora Street considering the road was repaved several years and shows signs of wearing indicative of a much older road – not so much with potholes, but severe road ‘buckling’.

William Street, from Transit to Aurora, is a one mile, two lane road with but a turning lane with signalization at Penora Street. where 15,000 vehicles use this stretch of road daily – includes school buses and trucks (both garbage and commercial). A good portion of the road has open drainage ditches and shoulders as narrow as 1 foot in width.

In the last several years, petitions to widen the road and/or fill-in the ditches for myriad safety concerns have resulted in no action being taken by the county. The town highway department offered to lend manpower and equipment to reduce the country costs to fill in the ditches.

So, don’t call the town to lay blame for road infrastructure issues that are the county’s responsibility. Contact your County Legislator, the County Executive or the County Highway Department.

BTW – If you believe that the intersection at William and Aurora is already a cluster-f***, wait until that new building complex at the intersection goes into operation.
March 15th, 2019, 03:49 PM
mark blazejewski

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lee Chowaniec

I am hearing that residents living in Town of Lancaster subdivisions off of William Street are complaining about the condition of a road that had been repaved but several years ago – as well as road conditions on Aurora Street and Como Park Boulevard....infrastructure potholes and failures. These individuals are missing the fact that all three roads mentioned are county roads, and as such the responsibility of the County Highway Department.

The listing of county and state roads can be found on the town’ website – under the Highway Department menu:

COUNTY ROADS

• Aurora Street
• Bowen Road
• Cemetery Road
• Central Avenue/Harris Hill Road
• Como Park Boulevard
• Gunnville Road
• Hall Road
• Lake Avenue from Village Line to William Street
• Nichter Road
• Pavement Road
• Penora Street
• Pleasantview Drive
• Ransom Road
• Schwartz Road
• Stony Road
• Townline Road
• Westwood Road
• William Street

STATE ROADS

• Broadway
• Genesee Street
• Transit Road
• Walden Avenue

So, don’t call the town to lay blame for road infrastructure issues that are the county’s responsibility. Contact your County Legislator, the County Executive or the County Highway Department.

I think infrastructure takes precedence over a new football stadium and convention center Lee. This week, Dixon was the adult in the room in connection with that public conversation.

Perhaps a change in the County Executive's office will positively impact those concerns.

Lynne Dixon's in order priorities from a November 6, 12017 interview with WGRZ-TV:

Quote:

Q: What do you want to see change in your district?

A: We must continue to strive to improve the quality of life for our residents; that includes everything from repairing our aging infrastructure to continuing to develop the Bethlehem Steel site and building on more waterfront access for bikers and all residents. I wish there was a one-size-fits-all solution to the opioid epidemic, but unfortunately that is a challenge that is going to continue to face us for years. We will continue to look for new ways to fight this dreaded crisis. I would also like to continue to work to relieve the tax burden on our residents.

https://totallybuffalo.com/spotlight...r-lynne-dixon/
March 16th, 2019, 12:02 AM
yaksplat

The road is shot. There are plenty of sections where you're better off driving on the other side of the road. According to a friend of mine that recently retired from the erie county public works, erie county wants to and has plans to fix all of the roads, but there's no money. Everything is sucked up into medicaid.

This is a direct result of the NY unfunded mandates from King Cuomo.
March 16th, 2019, 02:09 AM
Lee Chowaniec

Quote:

Originally Posted by yaksplat

The road is shot. There are plenty of sections where you're better off driving on the other side of the road. According to a friend of mine that recently retired from the erie county public works, erie county wants to and has plans to fix all of the roads, but there's no money. Everything is sucked up into medicaid.

This is a direct result of the NY unfunded mandates from King Cuomo.

Spot on!

Irrespective who the County Executive is, or Legislators are, there is truth in declaring that the county is short on funds to tackle a lot of infrastructure problems.

Several years ago, when the county repaved William Street from Transit Road to Aurora Street the county was at least honest at that time in saying that there was not enough money to add a turning lane. The cost would have been prohibitive and that there was not enough road right-of-way to accommodate such addition. The road deterioration is due to a substandard subbase and the fact that William Street was not properly ‘milled’ before asphalt application.

Contacting former Legislator Morton and current Legislator Bruso regarding road condition, need for a third lane to mitigate vehicular and resident safety hazards, and need to fill-in open drainage issues, the responses were alike:

Inadequate county funds
Road right-of-way (width) inadequacy
Need for eminent domain declaration to gain added property.

Town culpability

When I stated in post #1 that the town should not be blamed for deteriorating county road conditions, that does not entirely absolve the town in culpability. The Town of Lancaster is lacking in major north-south and west-east roads. Too often, subdivision roads are being used as by-passes for that reason.

Despite the town’s rapid growth which started in the 70’s, and continues today, and at a time when the county had the funds, the town showed no inclination to push the county for road improvements. Road widening, for the most part, occurred at road intersections, often with signalization.

For decades the town never met a development it didn’t like. If it did not meet zoning code requirements, the town approved rezones (and even rezones of rezones) to accommodate developer and builder best interest over that of the community – oft times labeling residents looking to protect their property rights and/or quality of life interests as NIMBY’S. And, all the wetlands the town lost because of bogus wetland delineation and/or segmentation procedures which resulted in much of the flooding and drainage issues the town now experiences.

For too long the town allowed developers to build substandard subdivision roads, which are then turned over to the town and then become the town’s responsibility to maintain. Under Highway Superintendent Amatura and former engineer Harris, new road designs and construction standards were put in place to prevent rapid road deterioration as happened from past practices.