The Stand
Attendees of public meeting feel pedestrian safety is being overlooked
Passions ran high at a public meeting at the Southwest Community Center on the evening of Jan. 8.
The meeting became contentious when local residents began piling up their anger and frustration on Paul Mercurio, transportation planner in the Department of Public Works (DPW) at Syracuse City Hall.
The meeting, a public hearing required by law, was announced as a presentation on the West Onondaga Street Green Corridor, one component of the Onondaga County Green Infrastructure Program, popularized by the “Save the Rain” slogan.
At 6 o’clock a representative of CH2M Hill engineering firm, county consultants for the program, started conducting a slide show on the 90 percent design document review for the remodeling of West Onondaga Street between South Avenue and West Adams Street.
About half an hour into the presentation, the event took an unexpected turn when the issue of unwalkable sidewalks was brought up by Sam Sage, president and founder of the Atlantic States Legal Foundation (ASLF), whose lawsuit, in 1986, against Onondaga County over Clean Water Act violations ultimately resulted in the Save the Rain program.
Sage focused his attention on the area in front of the Leonard Apartments building, a four-story structure at 400 W. Onondaga St., on the corner with West Street, two blocks down his office, located at 658 W. Onondaga St.
Leonard Apartments ended up in city hands when it struck a deal with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The property is currently undergoing renovation, which includes asbestos removal.
“This is the the worst corner in Syracuse because it’s never shoveled and people have to walk on the road where there is a lot of traffic with vehicles flying at high speeds,” Sage said. “Someone is going to get killed there. This illustrates why Syracuse is absolutely an antipedestrian city.”
Mercurio deflected the criticism by saying that he will refer the issue to Paul Driscoll, the commissioner of the Department of Neighborhood and Business Development, so that Driscoll can make plans to send a sidewalk inspector to the site.
Peter Thompson, a local artist and an environmental educator at ASLF, concurred with Sage. He cited the case of a city librarian who, he said, is scared for his life while walking down the street due to unshoveled sidewalks.
“This is a freaking situation,” Thompson said. “The city hasn’t adopted a pedestrian-friendly attitude.”
Thompson then said that the city’s next project should be a pedestrian plan.
At this point, Mercurio, stung by the arrows directed at him, began to squirm. He had been sitting in the background with the general audience as he wasn’t running the hearing. He stood up and moved to center stage.
He told the audience that in the past he had received heavy flak. He had been accused of his priorities being backward by putting a bike plan in place before considering a pedestrian plan, he said. Since more city residents walk than those who ride a bike, it would have made more sense to have worked on the pedestrian plan from the get-go.
“I did the bike plan first because it was easier to do than the pedestrian plan. Besides, I needed to get a handle on my job first.”
Mercurio said a pedestrian plan is going to be done in the future, to which Thompson replied: “Do it now.”
Susan Hamilton, a loan officer and housing counselor at the Syracuse Cooperative Federal Credit Union, said that on occasions she walks to her office at the Southwest Community Center but this is made difficult by the piles of snow accumulated by plow trucks on the sidewalks along Shonnard and West streets.
“The sidewalks are unpassable, and while walking on the road, I sometimes have to jump to avoid being hit by a car, specially on the corners,” she said.
Hamilton said that if a bike lane is created on West Onondaga Street to replace one of the two vehicle lanes, as envisioned by the Green Corridor plan, the pedestrians would simply walk on the bike lanes instead of on the vehicle lanes, defeating the purpose of installing bike lanes.
Mercurio said that some business owners shovel the sidewalks in front of their locales; others don’t. He added the state of New York owns several properties on West Street and that the city has an agreement with the state to plow the roads in front of these properties but not to clear the snow from the adjacent sidewalks.
Sage said that having people walking in the middle of the street is unsafe.
“This is a matter of life and death,” he said.
Mercurio said that Mayor Stephanie Miner proposed legislation to have the Syracuse Police Department ticket property owners cited for not removing the snow from the sidewalks in front of their properties, a task which now the Department of Code Enforcement is in change of.
“Unfortunately, the Common Council shot down the proposed legislation,” Mercurio said.
Mercurio added that the police are too busy to be ticketing citizens for not shoveling snow in front of their properties.
“The police have better things to do,” Mercurio said, to which Sage replied, “The police don’t want to do it.” Mercurio had the final word, “That is your judgement.”
As any South Side resident can attest, there are many streets in this neighborhood where even in the summer people have to walk on the road because of the deplorable conditions of the sidewalks, specially those in front of abandoned plots, due to years and years of neglect.
Cases in point are the 100, 300 and 400 blocks of Midland Avenue, whose intersection with West Onondaga Street will be part of the Green Corridor.
Of the 10 members of the Common Council — all belonging to the Democratic Party —
only Common Councilor At-Large Helen Hudson and Bob Dougherty, who represents the
3rd District, attended the public meeting, but he said he had to leave early. Common Councilor Pat Hogan, from the 2nd District, where the West Onondaga Street Green Corridor will be constructed, was not in attendance.
Dougherty didn’t contribute to the discussion of the project but made a reference to the Onondaga County Republican Headquarters at 321 W. Onondaga St. Just before exiting, Dougherty said, “I hope that the remodeling project will remove the parking spaces in front of the Republican Headquarters.”
– Article by Miguel Balbuena, Community Correspondent for The Stand
