Safety Upgrades on 202 Near Hospital Ahead

A groundbreaking ceremony was held to mark the beginning of new safety improvements on Route 202 in front of Hudson Valley Hospital Center. The new construction will add traffic lights and left hand turn lanes to the heavily trafficked portion of road.

 

 Hudson Valley Hospital Center President John C. Federspiel spoke about the long awaited arrival, and struggle to procure, traffic signals in front of the medical facility. Federspiel said the project to install traffic signals and left hand turn lanes along a small portion of Route 202 would be remembered as “one of the most important safety initiatives for this community, and for the people who travel through it every day.”

 

The $2.8 million project will be funded by the New York State Department of Transportation, and will add traffic lights at Conklin and Lafayette Avenues, just outside the entrance and exit for the Hudson Valley Hospital Center. The project will also realign the exit of the hospital with Lafayette Avenue, creating a four-way traffic signal, and add left hand turn lanes on Conklin Avenue and Route 202.

 

“We didn’t give up,” Cortlandt Supervisor Linda Puglisi said about the project that waited over 10 years for approval. 

 

Construction will begin in three to four weeks, and will stretch from just west of the hospital entrance, to just east of Conklin Avenue. “It’s a lot of work over a short distance,” said Jared Anderson, project manager.

 

 Cortlandt Town Engineer Ed Vergano made it clear that planners intended to keep two lanes open for the majority of the project. Route 202 is highly trafficked by local residents and Hudson Valley Hospital Center’s 1,126 employees, 300 doctors, volunteers and visitors.

 

The hospital’s expansion last summer and the fall opening of the Cancer Center and Medical Office Building are expected to increase traffic in the area. The project is expected to be finished by Christmas. Any work not finished by Christmas will likely be finished by early spring.

 

The construction will also include road striping, drainage work, moving utility poles and resurfacing the half-mile stretch of road. The contractor for the project has not yet been announced.

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