LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Not all have abandoned road

Posted

To the editor:

(re: “Lawmakers insist city adopt addled Old Albany Post Road from the state,” Jan. 24)

I’ve lived on Old Albany Post Road for 60 years. When the road was abandoned by New York State, the city didn’t abandon it. The city left the following utility on Old Albany Post Road:

• Overhead power lines that connect to the homes on the east side of the new Post Road (thanks to Con Edison)

• Street lights (thanks to the city’s transportation department)

• Fire hydrants (thanks to the city’s fire department)

• Buried gas lines (ConEd)

• Sewer lines (city’s environmental protection department)

It should be DOT’s responsibility to at least maintain the road so that the other utilities can maintain their respective infrastructures, and in case of emergencies, the road needs to be passable.

In the past, the DOT did fill the potholes on the road — until they just stopped. They do still maintain the streetlights.

What’s the rationale for one and not the other? I guess at least you can see the potholes when it’s dark.

The agency with the problem is DOT. They need to do their job. Every other utility is, regardless of who owns the road.

Just fix it and go back to filling potholes!

Otherwise, move all the utilities off the road and give the adjacent landowners the opportunity to buy their portion and close the road just like Horace Mann School did in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. As long as the city has shared utilities on the road, it cannot be privately sold.

The pond at the bottom of the road is the result of an underground stream that runs west to east under Old Albany Post Road and Broadway that empties into the park.

My guess is the stream was routed into the sewer line/storm drain on the east side of the roadway, but now the roadway has sunk lower than the storm drain, and will no longer drain — hence the pond effect.

Even the sanitation department cleans the road and removes abandoned, and the New York Police Department still patrols.

The only agency looking silly is DOT.

Pattie Noonan

Pattie Noonan,

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