County prepares to close span on main road in Copake

COPAKE -- Anyone who lives on Center Hill Road (County Route 7A) or travels through town via that route will soon have to find a different way to get where they want to go, because the bridge over the Roeliff Jansen Kill at Brown's Dam will be closed.

The long-awaited, much-discussed highway project to replace of the crumbling, 76-year-old bridge and resurface Center Hill Road for six miles from Church Street to County Route 7 and on to State Route 23 in Craryville has started with the posting of road work signs throughout the corridor,the setting up of a storage yard for equipment and vehicles, an engineer's field office behind the Copake Pharmacy and the removal of several trees along the project route, most of them in the vicinity of the dam.

County Director of Engineering Dean Knox said by email that A. Colarusso and Son, the primary contractor on the $5.7-million project,will likely begin the major reconstruction work on county Routes 7 and 7A  during the second and third weeks of April.

The replacement of the Brown's Dam Bridge, which includes the closure of the bridge will not begin until the first or second week of May, due to “the very stringent requirements” of the state Department of Environmental Conservation about work done in and around the Roeliff Jansen Kill. Copake Supervisor Reggie Crowley read the email at the April 9 Town Board meeting.

The original project goal was to keep one travel lane over the bridge open with an alternating traffic flow during the bridge construction, according to Columbia County Commissioner of Public Works David Robinson. But the condition of the bridge has deteriorated over the last few months to the extent that the structural integrity of the downstream lane “may not be appropriate for use as originally intended,” Mr. Robinson said in a March 15 letter to the state Department of Transportation.

Noting that the county's engineering consultants for the project recommended that the county rethink the one-traffic-lane-open approach, Mr. Robinson suggested that the bridge be completely closed and a detour be established. The state agreed.

The federal government is picking up 80% of the project cost, the state 15% and the county 5%.

On the up-side, the complete closure of the bridge will cut construction time from about 14 months to about 8 months, and Mr. Robinson also expects that the project will cost less.

The commissioner told The Columbia Paper by phone that signs for the detour will be posted on county roads and will take drivers from Church Street out to West Copake on County Route 7A, then north on County Route 7 past Copake Lake and back out to Center Hill Road, about a mile south of the Route 23 intersection.

But drivers who are familiar with the area will likely opt to take town roads to bypass the bridge, which is what has Hilarie Thomas, a 40-year-resident of Snyder Pond Road, concerned.

In a letter to the Copake Town Board, Ms. Thomas said Snyder Pond Road, which is immediately north of the Brown's Dam Bridge, is “pocked with potholes” after an “extremely hard winter,”  that the road has “very little shoulder” making it hazardous when motor vehicles as well as bicyclists, horseback riders, dog walkers and pedestrians travel the road at the same time. She is also concerned about speeding drivers, noting that the road has no posted speed limit and “as the population of Copake has grown, so too have the speeds.”

Now with the impending closing of the bridge, Ms. Thomas fears that the existing dangerous situation will be exacerbated and that Snyder Pond Road will become the primary detour for people headed to the county transfer station or into the hamlet.

“While an ordinary road might be able to accommodate this traffic, Snyder Pond Road cannot,” she wrote, adding that she hoped to see an increased police presence on the road and hoped that the county would compensate the town for road repairs which will become necessary due to excessive traffic.

Another person with concerns about part of the project is Susan Winchell-Sweeney, a Copake property owner along Center Hill Road, opposite the Mountain View Road intersection. The 70-foot-tall Norway Spruce trees that grow along the road in front of her house were the subject of several newspaper articles in 2009, when the county wanted to remove her trees as part of the road project, claiming they impeded sight distance. Ms. Winchell-Sweeney challenged that conclusion.

The Columbia Paper received April 13 emails from Ms. Winchell-Sweeney, who fears that the county still wants to remove some of the trees.

To contact Diane Valden email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it