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Village Wants Lower Speed Limit On Route 34 |
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by Dan Veaner
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Friday, 09 January 2009 |
 Village of Lansing Trustees want the speed limit reduced on Route 34 (East Shore Drive) from the bottom of Esty Hill to a mile north of Burdick Hill Road. Trustee Lynn Leopold, whose driveway comes out at the bottom of the hill, has long requested the change because of noise from diesel truck compression brakes and safety issues.
"It's safety and noise," she says. "People are coming down the hill way too fast for the kind of traffic that is pulling out on that road all the time. All the other approaches to the city, whether from the east, west, north, or south are all coming in at 45 or lower now. 89 is 45. 96 is down to 30 as it comes into the city."
With tens of thousands of workers commuting to work in Tompkins County and an ongoing problem with waste trucks choosing smaller county and state roads that go through Lansing over highways that were designed for them, traffic problems have become increasingly worrisome to Town and Village officials. The State owns Routes 34 and 13, and therefore must agree to make changes when they affect local municipalities.
"There are more and more people commuting," Leopold complained. "In late afternoon there is a steady stream coming out. I tried to turn south from Waterwagon Road. I sat there and sat there and sat there as a steady stream of cars came up East Shore Drive. And it's the same coming north on Triphammer, a steady stream of commuter traffic."
At Monday's Village Board meeting Trustee Julie Kilgore Baker noted that some states prohibit the use of compression brakes, and Trustee John O'Neill said he thinks they are prohibited in Auburn. Village Mayor Donald Hartill said he thought it isn't possible to prohibit them in New York State, but said he would get a ruling from New York State Department of Transportation's (NYSDOT) officials.
Hartill reported Monday that he had received answers to two letters he had sent to NYSDOT. The first requests a crosswalk across the Route 13 bridge on the east site of Triphammer Road. The second requested the reduction of the speed limit on East Shore Drive. He said that NYSDOT officials replied that they are investigating his requests.
Hartill guessed that the state would not act on his requests before the end of 2009 due to the State budget crunch and a freeze on hiring at state agencies. He says he doesn't think the agency would agree to reduce the speed limit all the way to the north Village border, but that they would rule favorably on making the area from the bottom of Esty Hill to a mile north of Burdick Hill Road a 45 mile per hour zone.
"There have been serious accidents," Hartill says. "A woman was very seriously injured last summer when she was hit by a truck that lost control. So there is a significant safety issue that the State will surely act positively on."
In a related discussion Trustees said they are pleased with results from a radar sign they installed on Triphammer Road as you approach a 30 mile per hour zone going south toward the malls. They noted that state troupers are pulling speeders over when they go too fast past the sign.
The sign is battery and solar powered, but because the Ithaca area does not get a lot of sunlight, the battery runs out and must be changed frequently. 'It's not always on,' noted Leopold. 'Sometimes it's on and sometimes it isn't. It's good because you get lulled into not paying attention to it and then it comes back on again."
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