Efforts to Date
In April 2012, the Committee for a Quiet Zone in Voorheesville was established. In August, the Committee presented a petition to the Voorheesville Village Board of Trustees containing the signatures of 358 Village residents asking the Board to take the necessary steps to create a quiet zone. Since that time many more residents added their names to our mailing list. Over the summer of 2012 Village residents also wrote letters to the Altamont Enterprise in support of a quiet zone (see Letters/Press page of this website).
October 2012 the Board agreed to fund a preliminary study of quiet zone options.
December 2012 -The quiet zone study was presented to the Village Board but the study examined only the four-quadrant gate option. The study estimated the cost of four-quadrant gates at $1 million, making this approach basically not feasible for Voorheesville. The Board stated that, although funds were available to study the median option, which was likely to be much less expensive than four-quadrant gates, the study would not go forward because the county had certain objections to median barriers. The Board was unable to say what those objections were.
January 2013 – The Board held a meeting in January at which time Commissioner Duncan of the Albany County Department of Public Works presented seven sentence memo stating his issues with median barriers. The Committee was given no opportunity to question him further nor to share any information with him that would address his concerns.
February 2013 – The Committee presented a proposal for a quiet zone to the Board that would use channelization devices or median barriers. The estimated cost of this proposal, which would involve some road rerouting, was $186,000 to $300,000. Also included in that presentation were specific responses to the points in Mr. Duncan’s January memo, which we asked the Board to convey to him. The Village Board said it preferred to ask Mr.Duncan first to clarify his objections to median barriers before responding to the points in his memo. The Village Board and the Committee agreed on a set of questions which the Mayor sent to Mr. Duncan in March.
April 2013 – In an effort to expedite a response from the County DPW, the Committee set up a meeting at the County Executive’s Office. In an attempt to be inclusive, we invited members of the Village Board to join us. Attending were Mr. Duncan; the Deputy County Executive; the County Director of Operations; the County Director of Communications; the Deputy Commissioner of the County DPW; Board trustees, Cardona and Stevens; and three members of the Committee. The Committee shared with the parties at the meeting, documentation that included federal agency reports; regulations; university studies; and feedback from consultants, vendors, and communities that have quiet zones. This information clearly supported the case for using channelization devices or median barriers for a quiet zone in Voorheesville and we asked that the information be considered in Mr. Duncan’s response.
May 2013 – Mr. Duncan’s response was received. It was largely a repeat of the points in his January 2013 memo. It appeared that he did not understand our proposal nor did it include reference to any of the information presented to him in April 2013 meeting. The Committee drafted a suggested response for the Board of Trustees to send to Mr. Duncan that would address his concerns. At the May 28th Village Board meeting, the Board said it would not consider our draft letter nor would it work with the Committee to develop an alternative response. County Executive McCoy was in attendance at the Board meeting as part of his listening tour of Albany County. We asked Mr. McCoy if the County would keep an open mind on channelization devices/median barriers. He gave a generally affirmative answer to the effect that the County was willing to work with us to find a solution. We are continuing to work with the County Executive’s office.
June 2013 – On June 18th the Committee for a Quiet Zone in Voorheesville sent this response to Commissioner Duncan.
July 2013 – The engineering consultant for the Committee for a Quiet Zone in Voorheesville, Mr. Vinny Valetutti, consulted directly with Mr. Les Scherr, the Project Manager for Public Projects for Northeastern US and Canada. Mr. Scherr gave an estimate for the cost of four-quadrant gates at less than $200,000. He added that, based on an actual field assessment, most of the specialized equipment needed for the four-quad gates was already in place. Mr Scherr provided a proposal for an engineering design (included in the estimate) that would cost $27,000 and would produce the project specifications and the final cost figures.
August 2013 – Mr Scherr’s information was presented to the Village Board of Trustees. The Board stated that it wanted to have the engineering firm, Barton and Loguidice PC, which conducted the original study of four-quad gates, to contact CSX to determine if they were all in agreement with the new estimates provided by Mr. Scherr.
September 2013 – Barton and Loguidice reported to the consultant for a Quiet Zone in Voorheesville and to the Voorheesville Village Board, that they had contacted CSX and accepted the numbers of Mr. Scherr as the best estimate for the costs four-quadrant gates.
At the September 24th Village Board meeting, the Mayor reported that he had had some preliminary conversations with a potential funding source for the engineering design.