Malta to pursue federal funding for road upgrades

PHOTOGRAPHER: Erica Miller

Malta Town Supervisor Vincent DeLucia calls the road-improvements situation a 'safety issue.'

The town will pursue millions in federal funding for a widening or other improvements along the busy stretch of state Route 67 that runs between the town of Ballston and Northway Exit 12.

Town Board members on Monday instructed own engineers to include a general safety and capacity-improvement project for the highway among the projects the town will submit for consideration in an upcoming federal funding review.

“It’s a safety issue,” Town Supervisor Vincent DeLucia said at the monthly town board meeting.

The two-lane road already carries more than 20,000 vehicles a day — and that’s before a Wal-Mart store is built in the town of Ballston. The road is a primary access for the western part of Saratoga County to the Northway, and it has an accident history: Two head-on fatal accidents occurred along the road in the late winter/early spring of 2015.

Councilman John Hartzell said the road is close to full capacity at rush hour and also has an accident history that worries residents.

Town engineers The Chazen Group will include the Route 67 proposal among three projects the town will submit to the Capital District Transportation Committee for possible inclusion in a five-year transportation improvement program.

The CDTC controls federal transportation investment in the region; no projects can receive federal funding without being on its list, though the town’s application has no guarantee of getting on the list.

Chazen engineer Eric Johnson cautioned town officials that Route 67 is a state road, and state officials would need to support any application for funding.

State officials have said they recognize the need for improvements on Route 67 but don’t have funding. If funding did become available, they said, Route 67 would have to compete against other needed highway projects.

A decade-old DOT study put the cost of improving the highway from Exit 12 to Ballston Spa at $13.7 million — a figure likely to have risen in the intervening years.

The figure is the most recent one available.

The other projects to be submitted to the CDTC for possible funding include construction of a roundabout at Route 67 and Eastline Road and “complete streets” improvements along Route 9 in the downtown area. Both sets of improvements have been recommended by recent town-wide or regional traffic studies.

At the meeting Monday night, one Route 67 resident, Tom Hickey, called for the town to change Route 67’s zoning from its current residential to commercial because of the number of vehicles using the road.

“The land use is really outdated for the amount of traffic we have,” Hickey said.

“We all hear what you’re saying that land use would have to be considered,” Hartzell told him. “The condition of the roadway is not safe.”

Reach Gazette reporter Stephen Williams at 395-3086, [email protected] or @gazettesteve on Twitter.