To the Editor:

If you have driven around the Capital Region lately, you no doubt have seen many newly constructed “super” gas stations. They’re set on a rather large amount of pavement with a bevy of gas pumps out front and a convenience store set to the rear of said pavement.

Thankfully, most of these super-stations are on the busy highways and roads of our metropolitan area and mainly serve customers arriving in vehicles. They provide easy access and ample space to drive around in.

What they don’t provide is safety for customers arriving on foot or even for those wishing to go from their vehicle at the gas pump into the store. This lack of safety is a concern for me if Stewart’s is permitted to build their version of a super-station in our small village of Altamont.

Because there will be so much more open driving space, I’m afraid we will see cars zipping in, around, and out in an unsafe manner — which poses a problem given how much foot traffic there is at our Stewart’s.

An interstate-sized super-station has no place in a pedestrian-friendly small town. It will overwhelm the rest of the village and encourage incautious driving.

The proposed Stewart’s design doesn’t appear to increase parking spaces. What it does do is cover a larger piece of land with a whole lot of unnecessary pavement, which will require a whole lot more lighting to cover that pavement that will spill over into our yards and sky.

I would like to see Stewart’s be a good neighbor by tailoring a new Altamont store to the village and not to a corporate cookie-cutter super-station model.

Ted Neumann

Altamont

Editor’s note: see related story.