ALBANY COUNTY – A $9 million highway rehabilitation project proposed for Normanskill and Johnston roads in the towns of New Scotland and Guilderland will be the subject of a public meeting next Thursday.

Normanskill Road – County Route 306 – becomes Johnston Road, County Route 203, and runs between routes 155 and 20.

The project is still in the design phase, and fits into the five-year capital plan for the county, said Michael Franchini, the commissioner for Albany County’s department of public works. The project budget is $9 million, he said; it would be funded solely through the county.
At this point, the existing conditions on the four-mile stretch of road have been identified, said Jeff Pangburn, an engineer with Creighton Manning Engineering, working on the design for the project. The next step is "to get feedback on what constraints are most important to residents," he said.
"We want to try to work with property owners to address their concerns," said Pangburn.

The Aug. 9 meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Westmere Elementary School gymnasium on Johnston Road.
"We hope to have the design ready for construction next year," Franchini said.

Franchini outlined five goals for the project. First, is the addition of a five-foot wide sidewalk along Johnston Road from Solarview Estates to Route 20.
"Whenever we reconstruct a road, we try to include a sidewalk," Franchini said. A five-foot wide sidewalk is standard, and complies with the American with Disabilities Act, he explained. "Anything less is substandard," Franchini added, noting that sidewalks that are not five feet wide are likely quite old.
The second objective is to widen the shoulders on the roadway to accommodate bicyclists. "Some county roads are not wide enough for bicycles" and cyclists must ride in the travel lanes, said Franchini. "It is much safer to ride on the shoulder," he said.
The third goal is to reconstruct the existing pavement. "The pavement is wearing down and deteriorating," Franchini said of the roadway, explaining that each year the county conducts pavement rating tests on its roads.
Pavement rating is "a relative objective measurement," said Franchini. The rating and the road’s history of repair weigh heavily into the assessment of the need for roadwork, he explained.
Fourth, the project will also improve sight distance and, fifth, reconstruct the existing drainage system. The objective, said Franchini, is to bring the roadway up to standards. "There are some features that don’t meet modern-day standards," he said.
Creighton Manning Engineering has done projects for the county before, Pangburn said. The goal of the design is to do a "best fit" throughout the corridor and to "try to minimize impact," he said.
Drainage is a "key" concern, Pangburn said. The idea is to try and maintain the natural water pattern, he said.

This stage of the project is an ideal time to get residents’ feedback, Pangburn said, adding that sometimes a property owner has a better idea of how a certain aspect of a project would best be handled.

One issue, he said, is that in order to accommodate the sidewalk, the county will need to acquire small strips of land on numerous properties. This is an obvious concern to property owners, he said.

Pangburn plans to hold another public meeting in the late fall or early winter, before construction begins.
"We want to inform them of the process and allow them to weigh in on it," Pangburn said. "The sidewalk really improves the quality of life for all the residents in that area," he concluded.