What Can We Do About The Speeding On Route 32?
A quiet Woodbury Town Board meeting featured a lot of talk about speeding, speed bumps, and what can be done to make local roads safe.
Say what you want about the members of the Woodbury Town Board, but I appreciate it when they do what they were elected to do and there’s no bullshit.
This was a good, no bullshit meeting.
And it happened at 4pm in the afternoon, which did not hinder the usual suspects from showing up to participate as well.
We really need to make earlier meetings a thing in our area.
Right now, when you’re starting at 7pm, and then you run two hours, that’s a huge time commitment.
And if you’re like the Town Board in Monroe, it’s at least a two hour time commitment.
Sometimes more. The March 4th meeting, for example, ran almost two hours, went into executive session for what felt like an eternity, and then the board came back together at almost 10pm to close things out.
So, just something to consider. Now let’s get into what was discussed.
It was a little quiet on the official business front, so we’ll go right into public comment. Much of it was dominated by discussions of speeding on Route 32 and the likelihood of a sharp increase in traffic if the warehouse in Cornwall is built.
Cornwall is outside my zone of coverage, so I don’t know too much about that project beyond that its a point of contention with Woodbury residents concerned about more truck and heavy traffic on 32.
Frankly, we shouldn’t be building anything that’s not environmentally friendly, high density housing in our area, but that’s just me. We don’t need another warehouse.
Water. Housing. Preservation. Transit. That should be the priority.
In addition to the increase in traffic — Let’s not forget Woodbury Common also wants to expand which would make traveling on Route 32 even harder — the issue of speeding came up with all three speakers: Jimmy Ng, Matthew Rapisarda, and Woodbury Beautification Chair Maria Hunter.
In response, Woodbury Police Chief, Kevin Watson, stated that the biggest source of complaints his department receives revolve around speeding. He also mentioned that Route 32’s speed limit has been the topic of discussion for “almost twenty-years.” I followed up with Chief Watson to get some more information concerning the number of speeding incidents his department handles in Woodbury, and if he could shed some light on what’s taken so long for Route 32’s speed limit to be addressed.
Mr. Rapisarda brought up the speed issue in his neighborhood on Brigadoon Boulevard in Highland Mills. He suggested that the Town / Village look into installing speed bumps to help cut down on people speeding in the neighborhood. Rapisarda was referred to Mr. Robert Weyant, who is the Village Streets Superintendent. I reached out to Mr. Weyant as well for comment on what can be done to help cut down on people speeding in Matthew’s neighborhood.
Other Topics From Public Comment
Another issue that came up involved cars with completely tinted windows. This is the first time I’ve heard about this; but Chief Kevin Watson stated that New York State has tough rules on cars with completely tinted windows (you’re not eligible to pass state inspection, for example, if you exceed the tint limit of 30%), and his department does check the tint when they pull vehicles over.
Maria Hunter highlighted the work and service done by Neil Crouse, a former Trustee in the Village. She was surprised the Town Board didn’t mention his service in discussions this evening involving Jewish Family Services, which Mr. Crouse was a coordinator with.
Speaking of Mrs. Hunter, Councilman Brandon Calore was on his best behavior this evening. Unlike the last Town Board meeting, Calore didn’t derail things just to try to find another way to punish Mrs. Hunter for speaking out about Town Supervisor Kathryn Luciani’s pay increase.
Finally, Jimmy NG brought up the issue of lithium ion battery fires. I wrote about this issue back in November for The Photo-News, which you can read here.
Just a couple of weeks ago, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul launched the Buy Safe, Charge Safe public awareness campaign. The campaign website has a lot of great resources on how to properly handle and recycle items with lithium ion batteries.