KINGSTON – There have been about 40 crashes near the intersection Broadway, Grand and Pine Streets, and Pine Grove Avenue, and Tuesday the Kingston Common Council authorized funding to try and fix the problem.
“The problem at Pine Street and Broadway is that you have an intersection that is not your typical cross-intersection,” said Reynolds Scott-Childress, majority leader of the common council. “You have a strange configuration of traffic lights.” There is another close intersection nearby, and Scott-Childress said he and another alderman were nearly injured walking through it. Now the city wants to make it a common four-way intersection. “So it makes it a very confusing place,” he said. “We think that is time to fix that intersection.”
The common council also passed a law making it easier for city residents to purchase solar panels and attach the cost to their tax bills, so if a decision is made to sell the property before the solar panels are paid off, future owners will be liable for the cost of the energy improvements.
“Somebody can buy solar panels, and if they sell their house in two years, they not have paid off their solar panels, but the panels go with the house,” said Scott-Childress. “The cost is added to their taxes, so that they can invest in this and it becomes an element of the house. They are not paying for a future owner to enjoy the solar panels.”
