SCHENECTADY — Business owners are cobbling together their own plans in an effort to design a compromise for the reconstruction of Erie Boulevard.

They’ve marked up Clough Harbour’s drawings and provided designs of their own that they believe will make the road more attractive, safer for drivers and pedestrians, and still allow the businesses to thrive.

On Tuesday they’ll find out how persuasive their efforts have been. Clough Harbour engineers will present a revised plan to the Schenectady City Council at its 5 p.m. committee meeting in the council chambers at City Hall.

Decades of experience in running a business may not be adequate preparation for a crash course in engineering, but some business owners believe they’ve come up with a plan that will end the year-long debate over how to rebuild the road.

“I spent a week, day and night, thinking outside the box,” said property owner Carl Liss before presenting his idea to Clough Harbour last week. He leases space to several business owners on Erie Boulevard.

“I think there’s a way to have the parking and a roundabout that stops T-bone accidents,” he said, adding that after some research he decided that the road does need some divider to reduce accidents.

“I admit, that sounds like a good idea,” he said.

He proposed a “stretched-out” roundabout, essentially turning the last block of Erie Boulevard into two one-way traffic lanes separated by a narrow median and connected by U-turns at both ends. He figures customers will be willing to circle around to their destination if they can see the route in front of them.

“Within sight there’s a U-turn. No big deal,” he said.

Clough Harbour’s plan has customers entering I-890 and merging across five lanes to get to the businesses on the southeast end of the street, location of Wendy’s and Lyle’s Hoagies; that part of the road would be open only to one-way traffic heading toward State Street. They have proposed adding a U-turn near I-890 so that drivers won’t have to enter the interstate to get to those stores, but Liss said his idea was better because it eliminates the roundabout entirely.

He also suggested a narrow median, no more than 4 feet wide, so that there would be space for diagonal parking on both sides of the street. Some of that parking is eliminated in Clough Harbour’s plan.

“Three to four feet is enough for these trees,” Liss said. “We can maintain the diagonal parking and put a 10-foot buffer between the driving lane and the parking so you’re going to be able to, relatively safely, back out and proceed.”

That plan would cost much less than the $14 million earmarked for the street, but Liss isn’t suggesting that the city return the rest of the state and federal grants that have been offered in support of the project. Instead, he wants the city to build another street behind the businesses on the southeast edge of the boulevard. Drivers could enter from I-890 and park in new lots built behind the stores.

“If you do this, you’re going to save significant money. So you can do a relatively simple thing — have a one-way, one-lane, slow-speed street,” Liss said. “The people could come into these parking lots and make a right turn out. People could flow in, flow out. There’s space back there that’s just trees that could be developed into parking.”

Clough Harbour landscape architect Scott Lewendon said Liss’ idea was similar to one of the top three proposals considered by the firm.

“We’ve looked at that,” he said, referring to the idea of replacing the roundabout with two U-turns. But, he said, Clough Harbour decided a roundabout was best.

“It is the preferred intersection,” he said.

As for a new road behind the southeast businesses, Lewendon said he would have included that in his plan if the city had enough money for it. He agreed that the area needs a service road, particularly for truck deliveries. But it’s too expensive to do both a service road and a roundabout, he said.

“It is a huge expense. At this point of time we believe it’s beyond the scope of this project,” he told Liss.

But he added, “I’ve taken down a lot of notes. This is not a final plan. This is a work in progress. Hopefully when we come out of this meeting, we will make improvements.”

After the presentation to the council, he will present a final plan to the public on Sept. 18 at Proctors’ GE Theatre. He declined to discuss whether the final plan would include a roundabout, but made it clear that he prefers it.

In his meeting with Liss and other business owners, he said the firm made a mistake when it failed to quickly persuade residents to support the roundabout. Despite discussing it for more than an hour at the only public presentation of the plan, he said the firm should have done more to push the value of a roundabout.

“There were things we did wrong. We didn’t give enough information about roundabouts,” he said. “We were hoping we could educate the public at that time. We don’t think we’ve convinced everyone this is the way to go.”