HIGHWAY PROBLEMS GO UNRESOLVED

Mike McCagg

ccSCOOP News

04-26-10 - 3:35 p.m. - A combination of bureaucracy and Mother Nature spell a one-two punch for motorists and landowners along a road popular with state workers who live in the middle of Columbia County and others looking for a hasty and picturesque route to Albany.

Route 9J between Stockport and East Greenbush is the quickest way to access the state office complex in downtown Albany and many of the jobs in that area for much of Columbia County’s midsection population. The road is also one of the most flood-prone, pothole-ravaged, and overall bumpy rides for commuters in the region. The latter may never change since the state, CSX, and other entities cannot come to agreement on who can do what to fix the roadway. Since Route 9J is nestled along the banks of the Hudson River for much of its length, water flows down the steep embankments on the eastern side of road before either flowing under the road in one of the many culverts and streams that dot the landscape or, as is often the case, flowing across the roadway. Lane

closures and road closures are an annual occurrence after heavy rains or long periods of rain. Even during the recent dry spell, water remained only an inch or so below the roadway in drainage ditches along sections of the road.

One former Route 9J commuter told ccSCOOP that the northbound lane is often unusable. Many times, “you can’t drive north on the road in the right lane,” said Heath Freidel.

The safety concerns of drivers being squeezed out of their lanes into oncoming traffic or hydroplaning on flooded surfaces are a constant.

A problem for decades not only for drivers but also for those who live along Route 9J, officials said that resolving the issue is a complicated matter that has fallen victim to a turf war and lack of cash. “Because of the different issues with jurisdiction between CSX, DEC (Department of Environmental Conservation), the county, Stuyvesant, and DOT (Department of Transportation) . . . no one could come together to select an answer to problem,” said Laura Sager, executive director of the Columbia County Soil and Water Conservation District. Sager's organization was charged in the 1990s with overseeing a study, paid for with between $10,000 and $20,000 in state funds, to

determine what could be done to address the constant flooding, erosion, and related problems along the route. The “very complicated and expensive” answer would be to rework the landscape along a several-mile stretch—a solution that Sager said none of the stakeholders would come to agreement on in turns of responsibility, cost, and jurisdiction. That has resulted, she said, in the problem remaining at least a decade later. “I can’t make them work together,” Sager said.

In the meantime, the New York State Department of Transportation crews are a constant sight on the highway, patching washed-out sections of the road, clearing culverts, widening drainage ditches, and repeating the same work year after year. Department of Transportation Acting regional spokesperson Allison Ackerman said that besides routine maintenance for the highway, no further work is planned. “We have discussed drainage concerns there with the Columbia County Soil and Water Conservation Service,” she said. “Water backs up well off the state's right-of-way, and it forces a tremendous amount of silt into the culvert [which results in flooding]. Periodically, our maintenance crews dig out the culvert to ease the flooding/back-up issues. The long-term solution is better soil use practices upstream,” Ackerman said.