SamPratt.com

Below are some points I’m volleying back at Carole Osterink’s Gossips of Rivertown blog, specifically in response to her informative post on the recent Greenport Planning Board meeting about truck traffic to the Hudson Waterfront...



Carole, here are several additional points to consider:

1. Anyone who has lived more than a couple of seasons in Hudson knows that 9G routinely floods just north of Mount Merino, which is precisely where this unnecessary and (I believe) unpermitted truck traffic is proposed. I've seen no mention of the flooding problem in published reports; maybe it was discussed and not reported. This raises the more general issue of emergency conditions: What happens if the road, crossings, or causeway are impassable for days, weeks or months? You can bet that in the absence of requirements from Hudson and Greenport, the trucks would resume their trips through downtown.

2. Speed is another non-trivial issue at the proposed 9G crossing. Even with one’s foot riding the brakes downhill, it is easy to arrive at the entrance to South Bay at double the posted speed limit due to the preceding long, steep incline. Warning signs and flashing lights would not prevent an eventual fatality. Hudson is already the Bermuda Quadrangle of traffic danger, with no route into or out of the City which isn't fraught with riskily-designed intersections.

3. Even those critical of the road plan and LWRP seem to be missing the big picture and allowing themselves to get bogged down in the minutiae of the issue. The root problem is not whether Hudson can get some picturesque piece of industrial wreckage landmarked, or even which “alternative” route is less horrible than the rest. No: The bigger picture is that waterfront plans are supposed to proceed from a long-range vision (articulated via the mundane terms of zoning law). It is not supposed to address short-term transitory conditions and demands of present-day developers, such as the owners of L&B in Queens or Holcim execs in Switzerland. Yet the current document is driven by and obsessed with those narrow, short-term pressures—rather than the broad and positive vision for a greener, more humane and more economically productive Waterfront for which the public asked. This version of what an LWRP should contain was espoused by none other than City attorney Cheryl Roberts and State Coastal expert Bonnie Devine at the outset of the process, before certain Hudson “leaders” caved to defeatist and small-minded political concerns. Those backing this plan want residents to get diverted into obscure arguments about minute details, rather than demanding that the big picture make sense. So we anatomize the finer details of O&G’s plans, rather than demanding that all truck traffic be barred from both the Bay and Downtown... They want us chasing fantasies about railroad relics, rather than demanding a far-reaching plan (one that will stand up long after the names Scalera, Mussmann, Osterink or Pratt are forgotten).

4. Speaking of history, my comments posted here last week highlighted a 1977 Federally-funded County Planning report. That report identified an irreconcilable “use conflict” in South Bay—a conflict between heavy industry and ecological restoration. It advised that Hudson needed to choose one or the other; that at such a unique and sensitive location, the two could not coexist peacefully. Yet that conflict was not tackled in either 1977, or even in 2005, when the Secretary of State issued a clear road map for ending it “immediately.” And still even some progressive voices who should know better bandy about empty buzzwords about “mixed use” and “working waterfronts.” The bottom line is people won’t have picnics, toss frisbees, or open small businesses if waves of noise and diesel exhaust are cascading over the Waterfront.

5. Speaking of Chris Reed, how come there is no notice of the LWRP comment period, meeting times, or a run-down of these pressing Waterfront issues on the front page of Friends of Hudson website? For an organization that claims to be still active— rather than just 2-3 people with a listserve—this seems like a glaring omission. The point of a citizens’ group is first and foremost to mobilize and empower citizens, giving them the tools to participate in a meaningful fashion.

6. In my consulting to citizens’ groups, I encourage discussion of such projects to use the verb “would” instead of “will.” (“The road through the wetlands would be 12 feet wide,” etc.) These projects are potential, not inevitable.