The road is a state road, so the NYS Department of Transportation is one interested party with some authority, since the state's right of way on the road extends several feet past the paved area. The other interested party with some authority to act in this matter is the nonprofit that owns the land adjacent to the intersection in question. That nonprofit is the Woodstock Playhouse. I do not know whether this organization is solvent, or in the process of transferring the land to another organization, bank or otherwise. But I do know that whoever owns that land can negotiate with the State Department of Transportation to improve the sight distance.
Years ago, during one of Jeremy Wilber's terms as Woodstock Town Supervisor, he wrote to the NYS Department of Transportation and asked them to look into improving the sight distance, specifically with the expectation that RUPCO would be developing land nearby, resulting in much heavier use of Playhouse Lane. I have heard that Thomas Storie, of the Department of Transportation, was not able to reach an agreement with the Playhouse, and that no improvements to the sight distance were ever made. There are more details here about which shrubs were going to be dug up and placed somewhere else, and how that would impact the Playhouse's use of their land, but the important thing, right now, is that the two parties met, and they did not reach an agreement. Of course I am not the first person ever to point out that the interested parties needs to sit down and talk, or that it already happened, and the process failed.
I will now share with you some of my own measurements, made with my trusty Lufkin measuring wheel ($31.97 at Home Depot.) You are invited to check my measurements.
Ten feet back from the pavement seam of Route 212 and Playhouse Lane is the edge of the stopping line. The diagrams show that ten feet is the measurement required for measuring sight distance, so I stood on the stop line and took photos and measured from there.
Looking left, I could see the first glimpse of a car approaching through the dense bushes only 111 feet from my position. The standard is to see the top of the car, and the standard for viewing is 3.5' off the ground. My eyes are about 5'3" off the ground, so this measurement is approximate. However, the sight distance to the left is certainly well under the 150 feet reported by RUPCO. I am not accusing RUPCO of mismeasuring. Maybe RUPCO measured the sight distance last year, and since then, the bushes have grown and grown, obscuring the oncoming traffic even more. Well, it's possible...
In any case, we move forward. AASHTO's recommended sight distance to the left is 360 feet. At the intersection in question, this 360 feet brings us all the way to the crosswalk just west of the intersection of Route 212 and Route 375.
(I stood there and shot a brief video. As you can see in the video below, it is not apparent that there is even a Playhouse Lane, let alone a car waiting to exit the intersection there. )
RUPCO estimates that the sight distance will be improved another 40 feet east of there, making it possible for cars coming out of Playhouse Lane and turning left to be able to see the cars turning onto Route 212 from Route 375.
Again, the problem is, who is going to improve this sight distance? Who is going to make this intersection safe?
I will quote again from the Ulster County Transportation Plan's Access Management Guidelines: "
"Municipalities can require that access management techniques be initiated for land use actions in developed areas. One way to accomplish this is to require a review of site plans and special permits when there is a change in ownership or land use. It is also important to understand the position of NYSDOT and Ulster County Highway Department in this process. These agencies often lack the authority to require improvements at these times but are highly desirous of implementing these techniques and more than willing to provide design assistance along with the necessary permits once they are required by the community. To facilitate this, communities should engage these agencies in a cooperative dialogue rather than have the applicant serve as a go between."
Seems to me that the State and County want everybody to work together, not pass the buck to the agency that technically has the ultimate authority on paper to make a change.
One thing I know: if RUPCO suggests that it cannot be forced to improve the sight distance at this intersection, and if the Town of Woodstock claims to not have the authority, and/or that "other" intersections also are in need of improvement and therefore cannot "fairly" only address this one, then the housing project has no right to move forward with the numbers that RUPCO includes in the DEIS, since these numbers are based on an improved sight distance. If neither party is willing to make the improvement, then the improvement will not be made, and the project will be built on fictitious, wishful assumptions. We should not allow that to happen. I am pointing this out now, so that the record will show that both the Town of Woodstock and RUPCO have been made fully aware of the hazardous and substandard conditions of this primary access point to the RUPCO development.
It would be one thing if RUPCO simply stated in the DEIS "150 feet is the sight distance, and it's not our problem." However, they cited "estimated improved conditions" without explaining how that improvement would be made, or who would make it.
In the Final Environmental Impact Statement, RUPCO cites case law in its defense of not being prohibited from building due to increased traffic. (It is more complicated than that of course, but the legal argument is valid, so I do not challenge it here.) However, the argument is not on point, since the problem here is not increased traffic, but increased danger. There is already danger at this intersection. It is already unsafe. RUPCO, without any plans to mitigate that danger, wants to send 53 households of residents through this intersection every day, knowing that they will not improve it, and absolutely passive in the effort to have the conditions improved so that the intersection becomes safe.
The Woodstock Planning Board needs to address when or how or even whether this intersection will become safe. We all know that if an intersection is unsafe, it will be even less safe if you send more cars through it. Allowing RUPCO to develop 53 units of housing with over 100 parking spaces for residents and "visitors" means that the Planning Board is going to increase danger in this intersection, unless it takes steps to mitigate the current dangerous conditions there.
In addition to the shorter sight distance present at the intersection of Route 212 and Playhouse Lane when no cars are parked on the northern shoulder of Route 212, the fact is that during the morning rush hour, that shoulder is host to between one and four cars. Cars park there and when the driver opens his or her door, the door necessarily opens INTO the traffic lane. During the video hour that I took, the shoulder was absent of any cars for about 8 minutes out of the entire hour. Even one car parked on the northern shoulder of Route 212 decreases the sight line of oncoming traffic to near zero. No effort has been made, and no plan has been mentioned to prohibit cars from stopping along that shoulder.
Years ago, during one of Jeremy Wilber's terms as Woodstock Town Supervisor, he wrote to the NYS Department of Transportation and asked them to look into improving the sight distance, specifically with the expectation that RUPCO would be developing land nearby, resulting in much heavier use of Playhouse Lane. I have heard that Thomas Storie, of the Department of Transportation, was not able to reach an agreement with the Playhouse, and that no improvements to the sight distance were ever made. There are more details here about which shrubs were going to be dug up and placed somewhere else, and how that would impact the Playhouse's use of their land, but the important thing, right now, is that the two parties met, and they did not reach an agreement. Of course I am not the first person ever to point out that the interested parties needs to sit down and talk, or that it already happened, and the process failed.
I will now share with you some of my own measurements, made with my trusty Lufkin measuring wheel ($31.97 at Home Depot.) You are invited to check my measurements.
Ten feet back from the pavement seam of Route 212 and Playhouse Lane is the edge of the stopping line. The diagrams show that ten feet is the measurement required for measuring sight distance, so I stood on the stop line and took photos and measured from there.
Looking left, I could see the first glimpse of a car approaching through the dense bushes only 111 feet from my position. The standard is to see the top of the car, and the standard for viewing is 3.5' off the ground. My eyes are about 5'3" off the ground, so this measurement is approximate. However, the sight distance to the left is certainly well under the 150 feet reported by RUPCO. I am not accusing RUPCO of mismeasuring. Maybe RUPCO measured the sight distance last year, and since then, the bushes have grown and grown, obscuring the oncoming traffic even more. Well, it's possible...
In any case, we move forward. AASHTO's recommended sight distance to the left is 360 feet. At the intersection in question, this 360 feet brings us all the way to the crosswalk just west of the intersection of Route 212 and Route 375.
(I stood there and shot a brief video. As you can see in the video below, it is not apparent that there is even a Playhouse Lane, let alone a car waiting to exit the intersection there. )
RUPCO estimates that the sight distance will be improved another 40 feet east of there, making it possible for cars coming out of Playhouse Lane and turning left to be able to see the cars turning onto Route 212 from Route 375.
Again, the problem is, who is going to improve this sight distance? Who is going to make this intersection safe?
I will quote again from the Ulster County Transportation Plan's Access Management Guidelines: "
"Municipalities can require that access management techniques be initiated for land use actions in developed areas. One way to accomplish this is to require a review of site plans and special permits when there is a change in ownership or land use. It is also important to understand the position of NYSDOT and Ulster County Highway Department in this process. These agencies often lack the authority to require improvements at these times but are highly desirous of implementing these techniques and more than willing to provide design assistance along with the necessary permits once they are required by the community. To facilitate this, communities should engage these agencies in a cooperative dialogue rather than have the applicant serve as a go between."
Seems to me that the State and County want everybody to work together, not pass the buck to the agency that technically has the ultimate authority on paper to make a change.
One thing I know: if RUPCO suggests that it cannot be forced to improve the sight distance at this intersection, and if the Town of Woodstock claims to not have the authority, and/or that "other" intersections also are in need of improvement and therefore cannot "fairly" only address this one, then the housing project has no right to move forward with the numbers that RUPCO includes in the DEIS, since these numbers are based on an improved sight distance. If neither party is willing to make the improvement, then the improvement will not be made, and the project will be built on fictitious, wishful assumptions. We should not allow that to happen. I am pointing this out now, so that the record will show that both the Town of Woodstock and RUPCO have been made fully aware of the hazardous and substandard conditions of this primary access point to the RUPCO development.
It would be one thing if RUPCO simply stated in the DEIS "150 feet is the sight distance, and it's not our problem." However, they cited "estimated improved conditions" without explaining how that improvement would be made, or who would make it.
In the Final Environmental Impact Statement, RUPCO cites case law in its defense of not being prohibited from building due to increased traffic. (It is more complicated than that of course, but the legal argument is valid, so I do not challenge it here.) However, the argument is not on point, since the problem here is not increased traffic, but increased danger. There is already danger at this intersection. It is already unsafe. RUPCO, without any plans to mitigate that danger, wants to send 53 households of residents through this intersection every day, knowing that they will not improve it, and absolutely passive in the effort to have the conditions improved so that the intersection becomes safe.
The Woodstock Planning Board needs to address when or how or even whether this intersection will become safe. We all know that if an intersection is unsafe, it will be even less safe if you send more cars through it. Allowing RUPCO to develop 53 units of housing with over 100 parking spaces for residents and "visitors" means that the Planning Board is going to increase danger in this intersection, unless it takes steps to mitigate the current dangerous conditions there.
In addition to the shorter sight distance present at the intersection of Route 212 and Playhouse Lane when no cars are parked on the northern shoulder of Route 212, the fact is that during the morning rush hour, that shoulder is host to between one and four cars. Cars park there and when the driver opens his or her door, the door necessarily opens INTO the traffic lane. During the video hour that I took, the shoulder was absent of any cars for about 8 minutes out of the entire hour. Even one car parked on the northern shoulder of Route 212 decreases the sight line of oncoming traffic to near zero. No effort has been made, and no plan has been mentioned to prohibit cars from stopping along that shoulder.
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