Skoufis blasts DOT over lack of funding to widen Route 17

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ALBANY – State Senator James Skoufis (D, Woodbury) took off his kid gloves and blasted the Cuomo Administration and state transportation department for not including funding to move forward with the project to add a third lane in both directions on Route 17 from Harriman to Monticello.

At a joint transportation public hearing with the Assembly on Tuesday, Skoufis grilled DOT Commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez concerning the two-year state highway capital plan under development and why there has been no allocation of funds to begin the groundwork for the project.  “If this doesn’t happen there is only one stakeholder who is to blame and everyone will know it and it will happen very publicly, and this is not a threat, just a fact,” he told the commissioner. “If DOT doesn’t get on board with this and you all operate under the auspices of the executive branch, everyone will know why this project is now 15 years later, still not moving forward and we need more time.”

In 2005, US Senator Charles Schumer secured the initial funding to study the project, and Skoufis is confounded as to why there has not been any state movement since then.




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