Last Thursday, the Geneseo Town Board and town attorney Jim Coniglio trained their sights on lame duck Councilman Dan Dimpfl and his idea to make the Lowe’s plaza more accessible for bicycles. Dimpfl’s suggestion that the Lowe’s plaza might be a good place to inaugurate a Geneseo-wide network of bicycle paths was shot down dead.
The town board has decided to create a sidewalk district at the future site of Lowes. The district is a solution to the question of how public sidewalks in the vicinity are going to be plowed in the winter. While the Village of Geneseo has an abundance of sidewalks and sidewalk-clearing equipment, the Town of Geneseo has neither.
The district will allow the town to pass all costs of the snow removal directly to the plaza as a special line on the property tax bill. Reportedly, both Lowe’s and the ESL Credit Union have no objection to this method of dealing with sidewalk maintenance.
Dimpfl initially questioned the wisdom of creating a district just to keep a few hundred feet of sidewalk free of snow. He suspected that a less formal arrangement with the new plaza tenants might do the trick more simply.
But the council majority favored the districting solution, so Dimpfl played another card. He proposed, if the town is going to create a district to accommodate foot traffic, perhaps the same district could accommodate bicycle traffic?
At this point things got a little sarcastic. Sidewalks are for pedestrians, not for bicycles, Dimpfl was told. Besides, how many people will be carrying off lumber and sheets of plywood on their bicycle?
Coniglio ended any further discussion of town-sanctioned bicycling by proclaiming that such activity could potentially expose the town, making it liable to damage claims from accidents.
The town board needs to revisit and rethink this censorship of bicycling.
With Lowe’s and ESL willing to flit the bill, there is an opportunity for designing and building an exemplary strip of dual pedestrian-bicycle right-of-way in the heart of Geneseo’s commercial corridor. If bicycling is in Geneseo’s future, there needs to be safe paths reaching the Route 20A retail district.
A pedestrian-bicycle path going through Lowe’s property would be an invitation for other retail properties to make connections — and then an invitation to enhance the bicycle network throughout all of Geneseo. For college students and folks on residential streets, a healthy and enjoyable alternative would exist for light shopping errands.
Lowe’s plaza would be a natural place to start Geneseo’s bicycle path network, and districting is an excellent method for capitalizing bicycle path infrastructure. The town shouldn’t miss this opportunity.
Avon, incidentally, is well ahead of Geneseo in this regard. The Greenway Trail is entering the village from the west over a refurbished railroad bridge. The trail has a 12 foot wide right-of-way, able to accommodate pedestrians, bicycles and even horseback riders without conflict.
Where the trail terminates at Route 5 & 20, bicyclists can hop onto their own extra-wide asphalt-paved strip of the repaved state highway and ride anywhere along the east-west breadth of the village.
I agree with the comment, “…how many people will be carrying off lumber and sheets of plywood on their bicycle?” but what I don’t agree with is the lack saying the same thing about walkers? There’s not a residence within any distance of the Lowes plaza that someone could walk AND carry a sheet of plywood home! Unless that someone got really mad, and turned green with purple shorts … then they may be able to do it.
Some of these government officials just kill me with their idiocy.
The real answer, of course, is that if you’re demanding a sidewalk (which as a community member, I agree with – I’ve wanted to see the sidewalk that ends on Lima Rd near Westhampton continued up toward WalMart since it was “completed”) then just put in a plain old sidewalk like you have everywhere else. A concept and design that has worked for decades in villages and towns across the country. Bicycle related deaths are never the top news anywhere, so I don’t see it as an issue. Rather, I believe that Volunteer Rd is PLENTY wide enough for all 4 bike riders we have in the Geneseo Town and Village. People that ride bikes (and walk) for that matter, are the minority. There is no need to bend over for them.
Kudos to the people involved for making a simple project ridiculously complicated in which the corporate lawyers will run circles around the local council once again (underground electric on the WalMart property …. ONLY! hahaha)
Concerning the snow removal … heat the sidewalk somehow (coils, hot water, sewer/water pipes below running below it to heat it, etc…) and have it hooked to the building(s) utilities … debate over.
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