Consultants present Lloyd safety-action plan draft; residents urge Tilson crosswalk and fixes along US 9W

Consultants from the project team presented draft findings for the Town of Lloyd Safety Action Plan at the meeting and sought community input on recommended countermeasures and policy strategies.

Zach Bro, a consultant with Kraton Manning, told attendees the plan uses official New York State Department of Transportation crash records from 2020–2024 and a DOT “potential for safety improvements” metric to identify priority intersections and road segments. He said the dataset showed 1,836 total crashes in the study period and 54 crashes that resulted in serious injury or death, and emphasized the plan’s focus on reducing fatal and serious injury crashes rather than minor collisions.

The consultants presented top priority sites that, they said, include US 9W at Perkinsville and several intersections on state-maintained routes such as Route 299. Juel, a member of the consulting team, reviewed candidate countermeasures drawn from FHWA-proven treatments and described low-cost intersection improvements—larger or LED stop signs, advanced warning signs, thermoplastic pavement markings—and corridor-scale changes such as two-way left-turn lanes, restriping and alignment adjustments to reduce rear-end and sideswipe collisions.

“People walking to and from downtown indicated they walk or bike sometimes, so pedestrian and bicycle safety should be a large part of this plan,” Alexi said during live polling results, a finding the consultants said reinforced the emphasis on pedestrian facilities.

At the meeting the team also described non-project strategies the town could adopt, including a Complete Streets policy to require multimodal design in future work and a townwide lighting study. The consultants cited federal DOT research and recommended further study of lighting, noting effective intersection lighting can reduce nighttime pedestrian injury crashes by up to 42 percent.

During public comment, a resident identified as AA said a stretch of Tilson Avenue that connects 9W to the rail trail lacks a crosswalk and has grown busier with new housing and commercial development. AA said neighborhood signatures supporting a crossing had been collected and asked the project team to evaluate Tilson as a priority for a crosswalk so children and high-school students can safely access the bus and trail.

“We took an initiative and I can paste in the chat the link to the signatures that we collected…there is a bunch of high schoolers that every single day have to cross Tilson to get on the bus right now,” AA said.

Another commenter, Shelley, described frequent pedestrian activity on the narrow shoulder of 9W near Grand Street and on approaches to the Mid Hudson Bridge, noting sidewalks disappear past the overpass while new apartments and hotels increase walking trips. “I see a lot of people that walk right on the shoulder of 9W,” Shelley said, adding that some residents without cars walk to groceries and transit stops.

Consultants acknowledged both locations as within the plan’s scope for evaluation. Zach Bro said crosswalks and other treatments are subject to engineering standards but committed to including the Tilson–Smith Terrace connection and the 9W pedestrian demand in the plan’s analysis and recommended projects. He also noted the plan will be a prioritization tool that the town may use to seek funding and pursue projects over time rather than an immediate construction list.

Next steps, the consultants said, include drafting the full Safety Action Plan that incorporates this meeting’s feedback and publishing it publicly. The draft will describe priority projects, recommended policies, and an implementation and transparency framework so the town and residents can track progress.

The project team asked attendees to continue providing input through Slido (session 1657797) and the town website, and said they will circulate the meeting recording on request.