Photo by Tim Rowland
Residents of The Portage hear about improvements to their street.
TICONDEROGA | After hearing plans for an extreme makeover of The Portage, a crumbling and poorly drained street leading south up and out of Ticonderoga, residents at a public meeting last week said they are optimistic the project will solve many long-standing problems in the neighborhood.
“If it does what you say and I can get in and out of my drive (during construction), I’m ecstatic,” one resident said.
Another said her family had been badgering the town to do something about flooding on The Portage since the 1950s, when she attended board meetings with her father as a little girl.
The street is being reimagined thanks to an ongoing project designed to separate rainwater from the sewerage that must be treated before being released into the LaChute River. Currently the rainwater runs into sanitary sewer pipes that head to the sewer plant. Because The Portage sits in the shadow of Mount Defiance, it’s subjected to tremendous amounts of runoff during storms.
When that happens, the whole system floods, discharging untreated or partially treated sewage into the river.
‘TRYING TO CORRECT THE ILLS’
Superintendent Joe Giordano said separating rain and sewage into two separate systems is the heart of the project, but — since the street will be dug up anyway — major improvements can be made when it’s all put back together.
“We’re trying to correct the ills of many decades so they don’t persist,” he said.
Following earlier community input, engineer Kevin Farrington said the road will be rebuilt with room for parking on one side of the street, and grass buffer strips and sidewalks on both sides. The town had considered bike lanes, but dropped the idea due to limited space. Giordano said the road currently is infrequently used by bicyclists, and that traffic is light enough that “someone on a bike can easily navigate it without a special lane.”
Farrington said there are some issues with flooding that engineers are aware of and some they are not, so he encouraged residents to contact him with specific concerns.
“You know your neighborhood better than anyone does,” he said.
Among the concerns, Portage resident John Burroughs said water pools and freezes at his driveway, costing the town copious amounts of manpower and salt. Plows spend so much time in the neighborhood, “I know all the drivers by name,” he said.
WORK DONE INCREMENTALLY
Farrington said the project will be designed this year, with construction to extend through the following two summers. The work will be done incrementally, he said, so the project will not disrupt the entire neighborhood for extensive periods of time. He said construction crews will be contractually bound to respect the needs of property owners and see that they have uninterrupted access to their homes.
Residents warned that the work might get tricky, especially if construction crews need to blast through rocky ledges that run through the area. Some houses were built on foundations that rest on the rock, and residents were concerned that blasting might do damage to the basements. Farrington said these concerns would be taken into consideration as engineers conduct geo-technical investigations of the rock formation.
Town councilor Joyce Cooper said the project is exciting, and will have a major effect on the community. “This will transform the whole neighborhood,” she said.
Once complete — and if other grant money is forthcoming — it could be a model for other Ticonderoga thoroughfares, Giordano said.
