By Michelle O’Riley

NEW SCOTLAND — The town has asked New York State to reduce the speed limit on a segment of Route 85, the main thoroughfare in New Scotland.

The part of Route 85 that stretches between Bullock Road and Heldervue Avenue currently has a speed limit of 45 miles per hour; the town wants to lower that to 35 miles per hour.

In a June letter to New Scotland Supervisor Ed Clark, Robert Stapf, chairman of the town’s planning board, stated that safety and traffic were reasons for the request to lower the speed limit.

Several of the existing curb alignments are hard to see at 45 mile per hour, explained Stapf.

Stapf also pointed out that this area gets a lot of traffic due to businesses in the area and that traffic will only increase with future commercial development.

There are currently 26 businesses and 30 residential properties and farmland that can be accessed from this part of Route 85, including Stewart’s, Stonewell Plaza, the New Salem Fire Department’s New Scotland Road firehouse, and the town hall.

On July 6, the town submitted an official request to the New York State Department of Transportation for approval of the speed reduction.
"It would be in the town’s best interest for both economic development and the safety of its citizens for the state to lower the speed limit," Stapf wrote.

Peter Van Keuren, a spokesman for the DOT, told The Enterprise Wednesday, "We’ll check our files to see if we’ve looked at that [stretch of road] recently. If it merits another study, we’ll do that."
Asked what the study would involve, Van Keuren said, "First, we’d look at the geometrics, the location of the road, the signage, the environment." This would include noting changes in the area, such as new development, he said.
"Then we’ll take speed measurements," he said. "We’ll base our decision on that."
Asked how long the process would take, Van Keuren said, "It depends on the workload; usually a couple of months."
He added, "We get a lot of speed-limit reduction requests. Sometimes people look at it as solving whatever problems are out there. That’s not always the case."
Van Keuren concluded, "There’s no engineering solution for motorists that don’t drive well. We can build safe highways and bridges but, if people don’t obey the signs, there’s nothing we can do."

Other business

In other business, at its July 11 meeting, the New Scotland Planning Board:

In other business the board:

— Approved two minor subdivisions on School Road and Youmans Road and also an application for a subdivision on Waldenmaier Road;

— Approved two special-use permits for the construction on a single-family dwelling on Youmans Road and for a one-year extension to build a dog kennel;

— Approved a temporary use permit application to allow an existing mobile home to remain on Wolf Hill Road; and

— Received a 27-page report from Dr. Gary Kleppel, a professor at the University a Albany interested in local planning issues, on his ideas on the future development of the town.