Hudson committee to ask council to remove through truck traffic from Third and Columbia Streets

HUDSON — At a Jan. 20 Charter Committee meeting, members agreed to ask the City of Hudson common council to consider a resolution closing Third and Columbia streets to through truck traffic while continuing to allow trucks that make local deliveries.

The committee said the recommendation is driven by health, safety and quality-of-life concerns for residents on streets that see heavy truck use and by a pavement study from TransTech that found one candidate route through the city is structurally weaker and far more expensive to maintain than an alternate route.

TransTech’s analysis compared two 1.3-mile candidate routes. Committee presenter Jason, committee member, said TransTech recommended “full replacement of Route 1, including the sub layer, which would give it a 20 year life.” He told the committee a local contractor provided rough cost estimates: complete reconstruction of that route would cost about $1.8 million, while a less-intrusive strategy of milling and repaving every five years would cost about $800,000 per cycle — roughly $3.2 million over 20 years if repeated four times.

By contrast, TransTech found Route 2’s pavement to be stiffer and in better condition. Jason said repaving and standard maintenance for Route 2 would cost about $800,000 per intervention and roughly $1.6 million over 20 years if repaved twice on a 10-year schedule as TransTech recommended.

Committee members said those maintenance estimates align with local grant funding cycles. The packet and discussion referred to CHIPS and state touring-route funding; committee members noted a typical CHIPS/state touring-route grant cycle yields about $800,000 — an amount that could cover one repaving cycle for a single truck route.

Committee members framed the recommendation as a way to reduce truck noise, vibration and traffic exposure on residential streets such as Third, Columbia, Worth Avenue, Green Street, Warren and Park Place. Margaret, committee member, emphasized the recommendation targets through traffic only: “while we are recommending the through traffic to be taken off of the route that comes in Dodson from Third Street, trucks will still be allowed to be on that road as long as they have local deliveries,” she said.

The committee also discussed legal and practical constraints. Members said the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) requires maintaining certain access points on the eastern end of the city — in particular connections to US Route 9 and State Route 23B — which limits how the city can re-route regional truck traffic. The committee noted it is not required by NYSDOT to allow through trucking access to US Route 9 from the city’s western approach.

Committee members listed mitigation measures they would present alongside the resolution, including better enforcement of the 25 mph limit, repaving of other distressed streets, and adding lane markings. Jason and other members said fully reconstructing Route 1 would be logistically difficult because removing and rebuilding sublayers would likely require significant street closures.

Next steps: committee members said they will draft a resolution and place the recommendation on the common council agenda for consideration (the committee agreed to target the council’s March meeting). The committee did not vote to enact the change itself; members said the full council would be required to adopt, amend or reject any resolution.

The meeting closed after public-comment procedures and a motion to adjourn.