KINGSTON – After finishing all the details, a ribbon was cut Thursday celebrating the completion of the Broadway Streetscape project, a $25 million, 32-month endeavor to make the City of Kingston’s main thoroughfare more pedestrian and bicycle friendly.
“We are officially taking this project on as an officially done project,” said Mayor Steve Noble, who the ribbon.
The project stretched from Col. Chandler Drive, where a new roundabout was built, south to just underneath the railroad overpass, included new signals, sewer lines and two-lane bicycle path running along Broadway’s northbound lane.
“We really tried to take what was four lanes of through traffic, which was very dangerous for our pedestrians, to turn it into to just two through lanes,” said Noble. “We also added room for bicycles to be able to use the street.”
The completion of the mid-block pedestrian crossings, with rapid-flashing beacons, was hampered by supply-chain delays during the pandemic.
Kevin Smith, the chairman of the Ulster County Trails Advisory Committee, said riding a bicycle after the improvements is much safer now than it was before the project started in March 2020.
“It’s light years difference in being able to ride away from the traffic,” he said. “You’re one vehicle-width space away from the travel way, and I found it much more enjoyable and much less stressful to be away from the traffic. In the past you’d basically have to make a choice of riding right next to parked cars and risk somebody opening a door and hitting you or riding in the lane and risking getting hit or not seen by a motorist.”
