CANAJOHARIE - Village officials will send a list of 35 suggestions to the New York State Department of Transportation for the village's upcoming streetscape project.
Village consultant Dave Carlson, the president of Carlson Associates, said since the DOT's public meeting last month, there have been meetings involving the village Planning Board and the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce to discuss what could be incorporated into the project.
The project calls for sidewalks to be refurbished on Erie Boulevard from the Sunoco gas station to Little Mohawk Street and on Church Street from the bridge spanning the Mohawk River and ending near the tourism booth, just north of the Wagner Square dummy light.
Village officials thought about moving the dummy light so work can continue to Wagner square, but Carlson said doing so was too "bureaucratically difficult."
Village officials suggested to the DOT there will be no parking on the Beech-Nut side of Church Street, but they don't want the sidewalk disturbed in the event parking in that area is reinstated if the plan doesn't work.
The village also decided to go with stamped concrete in a pattern that would match the new bridge over the Mohawk River. That would be done throughout the area with the exception being Church Street from Erie Boulevard to Wagner Square, where the sidewalk is less than 7 feet wide.
"It would just be a little bit of visual clutter," Carlson said. "The DOT landscape architect disagrees with us."
Arkell Museum officials asked for pavers instead of grass, but didn't want pavers to harm the existing trees.
Village officials also heard a presentation from Patrick Taft of Adirondack Neon Signs about putting an LED display somewhere in the village as part of the project.
Taft said he didn't recommend the village purchase a full-color board, but instead gave the village an estimate on a 3-foot-10-inch-by-6-foot-9-inch board that could display 4,906 shades of red and cost between $25,000 and $35,000.
A full-color board, he said, would double the village's cost.
Mayor Leigh Fuller said the LED display would be paid for by the Transportation Enhancement Program and American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus money since the $1 million the village received can only be used for streetscaping.
"None of this is absolutely final," Carlson said. "What this does is it gives them guidance so they can get their plans done in a timely manner."
The streetscape project will coincide with a DOT "mill and fill" project on Routes 10 and 5S that will result in a smoother drive through the village. The project is scheduled to begin in March.
Carlson said the DOT agreed to administer the project. Normally, he said, it's done locally.
"DOT, because they are doing a $500,000 mill and fill project, they have agreed and offered to do the engineering and design of our streetscape improvements in coordination with their mill and fill improvements," Carlson said. "This makes the coordination better. We can bid it out together. We'll have one contractor and it saves us on engineering costs."