North Tonawanda, N.Y. (WBEN) - Officials in the City of North Tonawanda are in the early stages of looking at ways to make Twin City Memorial Highway (NYS Route 425) a safer and easier roadway to access and travel for drivers and residents alike.
A planning study is already underway to examine the redesign of the approximately 1.2-mile stretch of the Twin City Highway and a 1.1 mile stretch of the adjacent Division Street. Twin City Highway is a state-owned road up until Nash Road, while the city owns Division Street, which is an arterial road along side it.
North Tonawanda Mayor Austin Tylec says this has been a long discussion for a couple of decades now about what to do with the highway.
"We were successful in getting a $500,000 grant through Congressman Brian Higgins' Office, formerly Congressman, and some state funds as well to basically re-envision what Twin City could be," said Tylec in an interview with WBEN. "It's a major divide in North Tonawanda, there are safety concerns that we've seen over the years. And really, it's about how do we make the neighborhood over there a lot nicer too?
"It's a very odd location, because the history of it, they basically stopped the highway. It was supposed to go much further, way past Nash and into [Niagara] Falls, I believe, and it just sort of stops. It's a perfect example of something that is dividing a community."
As part of the early stages of this planning study, the city hosted its first public outreach meeting on Thursday night with engineers from C&S Companies, representatives from New York State, and dozens of residents who are interested in giving their input on how the highway can be better suited.
"That's going to be anything from we want to hear people's feedback about what they think could be out there, what do they see as needs, what do they have as concerns. We have nothing identified to date, we have no preconceived ideas. We really just want to hear from the public what they would like to see out there, and then we can then take that, figure out what we would have for needs for the project, and kind of try to develop some concepts that we can move forward and bring back to the public," said Dan Bortz, one of the engineers from C&S, the prime consultant for the project.
C&S is helping navigate this process for the planning study, which is also referred to as a PEL study - a Planning and Environmental Linkages study.
"Ultimately, our goal is to get a report together that would have some recommendations, it would identify what the point of the project is, what the needs of the project are, some objectives, and then some concepts that would meet those objectives. A lot of public input along the way to make sure that we're meeting the needs of everyone," Bortz detailed.
The planning study is set to cover most every detail with the highway from traffic to environmental concerns - air, noise - historic resources, wetlands. Anything that has to be reviewed as part of the federal process, in addition to the outreach component.
"There are certain state codes, guidelines that we have to obviously follow with it, how intersections are built, accessibility. And, of course, they're going to look at what kind of traffic flow do we get here. They're going to be doing a lot of counts to figure out how many roads we actually need," Tylec noted. "The assumption right now is we can definitely reduce the amount of lanes that we have there. We're not saying it's going to go down to one, we're not committing to roundabouts, but there will be some changes based on data that we find with people's commute. It's one of the major ways that people exit or enter North Tonawanda."
The safety of the highway will be another component to the planning study. This especially will come to the attention of many after a Jamestown man was struck and killed while riding an e-bike on Twin City Highway at Tremont Street just this past Monday.
"The unfortunate accident that happened on Monday, there were a lot of factors at play there, and there have been a couple of accidents over the last decade on Twin City for different reasons. But this only amplifies the need to re-envision Twin City," Tylec said. "There's a lot of ways that we can make it safer to cross, to travel, and for pedestrians to be a part of another's' daily commute in vehicles. That's obviously going to be a hot topic, we are well aware of it. It is a little coincidental, it's so close to this already planned event."
Bortz also points out that back in the 1960s, when these roads were designed, the concept of everything was vehicle-centric and how a driver can get from Point A to Point B the fastest? Fast forward to 2024, there's different modes of transportation that people wish to utilize.
"People want to be able to take public transportation on a bus, people want to be able to use e-bikes, they want to be able to walk, they want to be able to bike to work or to a shopping center, or to a place of worship. So we want to make sure that as we're looking at this study, we mention safety, but we want to make sure that all modes and all users of the facility are included," Bortz said.
Following Thursday night's public outreach meeting, there will be a couple more such meetings planned down the road. Tylec says there will be a handful of different ways that the city will engage the public on this matter.
"If people have been to these types of projects, people are very familiar. We have a lot of projects going on in North Tonawanda, which requires us to do public outreach with various engineers, including C&S and a couple others. So it's sort of a standard process to engage the public, surveys, gathering any type of information we can, going to public places - the library, City Market, City Hall," he said.
Tylec adds there is an internal stakeholder, or executive committee with some of the members having businesses along Twin City Highway.
"We have members from Market in the Square, we have the Hideaway Grill, Blatner's is one of the members. We have a couple residents that live there, there's not a ton of homes there, but that's also an important piece," Tylec said. "Twin City is, more or less, a business strip too, so how do we make it user friendly, but also promote some of those businesses and future businesses that want to be there along the road?"
Brotz says there will be different objectives for each public outreach meeting going forward. The best way to keep up with what's happening with this planning study and project is by following along on the project website.
"It's TCMHForward.org . On that website, you can sign up with an email address. All the information from [Thursday's] public meeting will be posted," Brotz said. "There's an exercise on there, a mapping exercise, where you can add your comments and feedback. That's the best way to stay connected to the project, and then kind of see our next meeting, which is going to be in the winter timeframe, exact date to be determined. It'll be posted on there. The city has done a great job of putting up messages on variable message boards, it was on the water bills, it was on the mayor's newsletter. That's the best way to stay connected, and there'll be kind of some notes, as we move forward as to what the next meeting will be, when it will be and what we're looking for."
Tylec says this whole process typically takes about 18 months, and the process is about six months in. He imagines that a year from now is when the project will really start to take shape.
"We're going to have more of an idea, and tangible concepts of all that input and how that is going to lay out there, along with the public input along the way. And then that information, ultimately, will go towards sort of that big grant, the big piece that's going to fund the construction of it," Tylec explained. "I certainly don't want to make promises on when we're going to have a shovel in the ground, but it could be as close as two, three, four years. So 3-to-5 years, I'd say, if everything works accordingly. We move pretty quickly, we want to get it done."
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