Two small sidewalk projects in the heart of Hyde Park have moved one step closer to reality after the town engineering consultants gave an update on them at the Town Board workshop meeting March 24.
The East Market Street project, which is being called a “pedestrian path” because of a small amount of curbing, will run between Stewarts on Route 9G and Hyde Park Heights Apartments, a stretch of about 850 feet. The curbing will be required near Hyde Park Heights to protect pedestrians in accordance with county concerns.
The engineering consultants, Andrew Learn and Pete Setaro, said they had met with the Dutchess County Department of Public Works in February and got conceptual approval for the Market Street project before applying for a Community Development Block Grant of $147,000, which will be used to fund the project.
Learn said, “We submitted plan drawings and designs just a couple weeks ago and we’re hoping to hear back from them with approvals or additional comments in the next couple of weeks.” The next step would be to hopefully put the projects up for bid in mid-April, he added.
Meanwhile, the Route 9 sidewalk, which will run about 350 feet from the corner of Terwilliger Road to near Dairy Queen or Molloy Pharmacy, will be funded with $30,000 of reapportioned monies from a Multi-Modal sidewalk that was planned a few years ago for Route 9 to Pine Woods until there was a conflict with a property owner.
One concern of the board was the responsibility for maintaining the sidewalks. Town attorney Warren Replansky explained that overall maintenance is the town’s responsibility, such as snow removal, but Supervisor Aileen Rohr noted that areas in front of commercial properties are the responsibility of business owners.
Setaro said that the town would maintain the landscaping for the first year because it has a one-year warranty, but that the sidewalks will be the responsibility of the adjacent property owners.
Setaro is working on getting easements from property owners while the sidewalks are being constructed alongside their properties.
The Route 9 project will be made up of 4-foot-wide sidewalks with a 2-foot-wide strip of grass on the roadside, said Learn. However, he said, the planned length of 350 foot is estimated to “put us a little bit over what we can spend,” so the section near Molloy’s Pharmacy will be only added if the base bid comes in at a “good price.”
Learn said that they are waiting on the county DPW to approve the East Market Street path and that he and Setaro were going to present specifics on the Route 9 sidewalk project at a meeting with the state Department of Transportation, which has to approve the plan.
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