Mapping New Paltz Walking Trails

When Google Maps first added the "walking" feature I thought it was a pretty cool idea, but not one that was complete. Sure, I can get walking directions to London (sort of), but look what happens when you ask for walking directions from Stop and Shop to Meadowbrook:

View Larger Map

Obviously the Google Mappers don't know that we preserved the walking path between this condo community and the New Paltz Plaza (no, we really can't call it the Ames Plaza anymore). I know Google is good about fixing things that are wrong if you ask, but understanding the nuances of adding my own maps is a little beyond me.

But now there's WikiWalki, a user-edited database of trails that combines the ease of Wikipedia with the database of Google Maps. I gave it a shot by eyeballing the visible location of the Rail Trail to see how easy it is:

View Trail at wikiwalki.com

Trail Map widget provided by Wikiwalki.com

It's not perfect by any stretch - for one, I stopped mapping because it's 2:30 in the morning and I couldn't follow the line on the satellite photo very clearly, so I was afraid I would map people right into the Wallkill. But since it's a wiki, anyone can come along and improve upon my work and extend the Rail Trail map from Gardiner to Rosendale.

Bicycle-Pedestrian Committee, Senior Task Force, and anyone else interested in pedestrian needs, please take note!

(And did anyone notice that the pedestrian-in-crosswalk signs have returned on Main Street without fanfare? I'd like to know who to credit for that!)

Living on a glacier

I feel like I can't say enough about this ice storm, and how much it makes me think that snow and ice removal should be a function of village government.  In fact, they already do it for the absentee landlords; I had a conversation with building inspector Kathy Moniz a few minutes ago as the DPW crew plowed and shoveled the icy mess across the road from me.

The village charges a dollar a linear foot plus a $50 administrative fee if they need to remove the snow and ice from your sidewalk.  As my own glacial horror is too frozen for a snow shovel and chipping away with a garden shovel is reminding me of my age, that price seems almost worth it.  The fifty dollars is for Kathy's time, as she has to stand by filming the crew, both to prove the bill is appropriate and for liability reasons.  Of course, if the village just did it as a matter of course, Kathy wouldn't need to do a survey after every snow fall and watch the crew as they did their jobs; she could focus on many of the other tasks her understaffed department is responsible for.

When I shared my interest in municipal snow removal with Kathy, she said to me, "You'll never get them to do it."  I don't know if she meant the board or the DPW.  

If she meant the board, I'm not so sure.  There are only a few readers here, but they're quick to pipe up if they don't like what the poster has to say on an issue, so I'm assuming that the small sample represented by the readership of the Gadfly would like clearer sidewalks.  I'm reasonably sure I could get the board to consider this in their next budget cycle.  Kathy is probably just a bit jaded by working in government.

If Kathy was referring to the DPW . . . well I really hope she wasn't.  I take a very dim view of any government employee who doesn't do their job, and I have no problem with naming names in all sorts of public places if that sort of shenanigans were to occur.  But I'm sure that if the DPW is directed to remove snow from sidewalks, that they will do so quickly and efficiently.

For the moment, I await a ride from a friend to go buy more salt.  My car is completely frozen under, and even my garage is frozen shut.  Ah, the joys of living on a sloped lot!

Ice Job for New Paltz

I wrote up my thoughts about snow-covered sidewalks before yesterday's wintry mess brought fluffy inches coated with ice, which melted and refroze overnight to leave most area residents staying inside if they could help it.  After pushing my wife out of our plowed-and-iced driveway and shoveling more of the frozen plowshare (with the hopes that additional salting would make the next round possible), I had the opportunity to see how my neighbors fared in the conditions.

This storm was definitely more than we could handle.  No matter where I went, I saw one or more of three things:

1. People breaking up ice with whatever tools were available, from metal shovels and hoes to sturdy boots.
2. Ice, ice, and more ice, sometimes over snow and sometimes not.
3. Water, either dammed into pools by the ice or sitting atop it as the sun melted it all again.

I found it very difficult to find places to safely walk, and it wasn't because residents and employees weren't trying.  The only safe passage was on sidewalks alongside the campus and Hasbrouck Park, and the caterpillar treads were all the explanation I needed.

Storms like this our outside of our ordinary abilities to react to completely and quickly.  This is a case where a government can be used for its intended purpose - to do things that need to be done to keep civilization chugging along.  Safe streets and sidewalks are part of that mission.  If the village were charged with removing snow from the sidewalks, it would have been done far more quickly and thoroughly than we as a community have accomplished so far.

I got home to discover that the remaining snow-covered half of my sidewalk melted enough to collapse onto the cleared portion, rendering it pretty much impassable.  It was already too cold to make much of a difference, so make sure to wave to me tomorrow as I try to clear away the old stuff before tomorrow's flurries.

Clearing sidewalks is snow joke

We get more snow in the Hudson Valley than I experienced growing up to the south of here, and far less than the many feet I saw when I was a college student to the north. Snow removal, particularly from sidewalks, was a topic of concern at this week's Town Planning Board meeting, held jointly with the Town Council. It's also the topic of a letter that Bill Weinstein wrote to the New Paltz Times. The picture at left, taken this morning, is of my own buried sidewalk, and reminds me that some shoveling is definitely in order out there.

Paul Brown, chair of the Planning Board, seems to feel that we're better off minimizing how many sidewalks we require be built because those sidewalks need to be maintained and cleared. Better to make people walk in the streets, which are plowed, than force homeowners to shovel would could amount to hundreds of feet of sidewalk in some areas of the Town.

Bill Weinstein recently took over the chair of the Bicycle-Pedestrian Committee, and he's not impressed by how poorly the sidewalks in the Village proper are cleared. This is what he has to say:

To the Editor:

The heavily used crosswalk across Main Street from the Chase Bank to Elting Library was blocked by snow on the bank side for at least six days from Thursday, January 15th. The shoulder of snow that straddled the street and sidewalk by the bank was thrown up by a snowplow doing its job clearing the street. Nevertheless, no one took the time to cut through this snow and make it possible for pedestrians, particularly people in wheelchairs or children in strollers, to use this wheelchair-accessible curbcut.

Pedestrians eventually made their own passageway through the snow, a mini-Khyber Pass of about a footprint's width. (Please see the attached photo.) This was what I had to help my three-year-old navigate twoThursdays ago, with only one eye out for the traffic – a dangerous situation with a high risk of slipping or tripping into the traffic lane.

By Friday, the passage was no clearer, and colder weather and more snow was setting in. By the end of the Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, the now greater accumulation of snow and ice still had not been cleared, as was the case on Monday and Tuesday.

On Wednesday afternoon volunteers from the New Paltz Bicycle-Pedestrian Committee cut a clean, wide path through the snow and ice. Pedestrians could now cross Main Street from the bank to the library without fear of slipping.

But whose responsibility is it to make sure that New Paltz crosswalks are kept clear for walking? Village Code §175-11.E requires that the owner of property at an intersection must clear a path 30" wide to enable pedestrian access from the sidewalk to the street. Safe pedestrian access to our crosswalks and sidewalks is an important part of making New Paltz the vibrant, liveable community we love. Let's make sure we all hold up our end of the shovel when the snowflakes fly.

Yours sincerely,

William Weinstein
For the New Paltz Bicycle-Pedestrian Committee

I find that New Paltz is really the worst of all worlds when it comes to removing snow. As a homeowner, I do not have the village clearing the sidewalks as happened in Potsdam, where I went to college. I also do not have a parkway strip, as my parents did on Long Island. That two feet of grass between road and sidewalk is very useful right now, because with my sidewalk adjacent to the street, it becomes the depository of the plowed snow.

I like to think of myself as a young man, and I have no problem either shoveling a couple feet of fluffy snow from my walk, or hiring some local kids to do it. But moving the plow's share is a lot tougher. Last time we had snow, we got it shoveled only to have it buried again, and then it froze solid. I've been trying to get rid of it ever since. It can take more than good intentions to shovel even a short walk, and I can't imagine how people older than I do it.

In the village, at least, I am thinking it may be time to consider having the DPW clear the sidewalks, like the college does. Either I'm paying someone to do it or I'm losing money (and possibly my health) by doing it myself, so I don't think it would actually cost more. It would also ensure that pedestrians get safe passage, whether or not Chase Bank gets the walk shoveled or my snow freezes under the plow's blade. Some people can't be bothered to clear the snow, and others try and fail. If the goal is snow removal, we should seriously consider why we don't consider sidewalks to be as important as roads.

Comments and contradictions welcome. Libertarian comments about the dangers of expanding government are particularly invited, but I invite one and all to poke holes in this idea.

Village Crosswalks Continue to be Dangerous

Does anyone else remember when we had signs in the middle of our village crosswalks reminding drivers that they have an obligation to yield to pedestrians? It's a frustrating issue that has gotten only marginal newspaper coverage. The signs were put out by the DPW and brought in at night by the police. Apparently they didn't want the job anymore, so it stopped happening.

I was a member of the Bicycle-Pedestrian Committee for its first year, and Alan Stout is being kind when he implies that they've only been trying to get those signs back since the summer. It's been high on their agenda since day one, and it boggles my mind that they have been thwarted for so long.

So here are the reasons I have been told about why we don't have signs to keep our citizens and shoppers safe as they cross various parts of Main Street:

• They must be brought in at night and the police doesn't have the manpower.
• Even though volunteers have been approached
• Even though the DOT will permit them to be out all night
• The DOT has to give permission before we can put them back
• The village board claims they sent in the request, but sitting around and waiting strains credibility when people have phones in their offices . . . how about calling to see if you can walk this one through?
  
• A town in Texas was found liable when a drunk driver hit a boulder that was in the middle of the road
• I don't want to embarrass the elected official who made the comparison between a plastic sign and a boulder in writing, but it's tempting
• They make it too difficult to turn for trucks
• They're plastic signs, remember?
• They cost too much to replace
• The cost about three hundred bucks apiece. How much are you willing to spend so senior citizens can feel safe crossing from Starbucks to P&G's?
• The village Department of Public Works is concerned about their plows
• Don't put them out in the snow.

If you're an elected official in the Town or Village, please remember that the police and DPW are your employees. If it is good for our community, go ahead and tell them to do it.

We really have too many fiefdoms represented to make this idea happen. Unification, anyone?