Edgemont to get more sidewalks, safety improvements

In recent years the Greenburgh Town Board has focused significant attention on making our community more pedestrian friendly. Sidewalks are being built and planned for all over town. We are committed to building more sidewalks and improving crosswalks all over town -reducing accidents, injuries and fatalities.

The Edgemont Community Council and subcommittee formed to specifically address and advocate for safety concerns in the area, met with the Town Board recently to present their findings from extensive meetings and surveys and recommendations for a traffic mitigation plan.

Dylan Pyne and Lucas Cioffi said they surveyed 632 residents on road safety-related issues for Edgemont throughout hosting a series of Zooms with each of the eight neighborhood associations. Ideas were collected on a map and narrowed to focus on the three biggest roads for the sake of targeting major grants or capital funding, while other smaller issues are being addressed ongoing in regular monthly meetings between the committee and Town departments of Public Works, Planning, and Traffic.

The three major streets of focus are Ardsley, Fort Hill and Old Army roads, for which the committee requests sidewalks and other safety measures, following further engineering and analysis. They would like an ADA compliant sidewalk on Fort Hill Road, traffic calming measures for Old Army Road, and a smart traffic light for the intersection of Ardsley and Fort Hill.

Planning Commissioner Garrett Duquesne said while the committee expressed Fort Hill sidewalk as their number one priority, the project most viable for TAP (Transportation Alternative Program) Grant funding–which his department has been successful winning three times in a row–would be the Old Army sidewalks since they are close to a school and most feasible. The Town Board gave the commissioner the go ahead to apply for the TAP grant. The town will be required to absorb 20% of the costs.The application is due in January and a multi-year process with work possible to start in 2025. We also are going to work with the Edgemont Community Council on another safety initiative: a possible smart traffic light on Ardsley Road/Ft Hill Road. A sidewalk on Ft Hill is another major goal. Next possible steps to investigate the Fort Hill sidewalk would be the Town commissioning a survey with additional funding possible if it proves warranted to consider a shift to a one-way road, while looking into how many individual homes this might impact.

The Board thanked the committee for their productive efforts thus far. If we can make Edgemont more pedestrian friendly and if some lives are saved it will be worth the effort and costs. The Town has been making significant progress in recent years with a miles of new sidewalk projects underway and in the works for Juniper Hill, Hillside Ave, West Hartsdale Road, and Dobbs Ferry Road.

Link to discussion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ETZaf-_HK8

NYS PLANS TO REPAVE CENTRAL AVE NEXT YEAR
The NYS Department of Transportation has provided me with good news. Central Ave will be repaved next year! Portions of the road have been in horrible shape

PAUL FEINER
Greenburgh Town Supervisor