ELDRED, NY — The Barryville intersection between Route 97 and Route 55 has a reported issue with safety. 

The intersection had nine-to-10 multi-vehicle accidents so far this year, said Highland Supervisor Jeff Haas, speaking at an August 8 meeting of the Highland Town Board. 

The Route 55 entrance to the intersection has a blinking red stoplight; the Route 97 entrance has a blinking yellow. This could be confusing for drivers who aren’t used to the setup, according to Haas, who has spoken about the issue with Ed Mall, a local representative of the New York State Department of Transportation (DOT). 

Wall couldn’t educate the public about how to navigate the intersection, he told Haas. But the DOT had other ways of effecting safety at that intersection. 

Safety measures

“As in years past, I’ve reached out to the New York State DOT asking them for assistance in clearing back some brush, and possibly restriping [of the road] or [adding] speed bumps or more signage or strobe lights in the stoplights,” Haas told the town board. In addition to conversations with Mall, Haas spoke with Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther about the situation at the intersection. 

Gunther offered possible grant funding to study the intersection’s traffic patterns. 

Mall and the DOT have some more immediate ways of improving the intersection’s safety. 

The DOT will try to trim back the bushes around the intersection and to put rumble strips on the Route 55 approach. Haas said that he’d experienced the rumble strips on a portion of Route 97, and found “they get your attention; they really do.”

The DOT will chip-seal the road starting next month, and will redo the crosswalks and stop bars at the intersection. Haas said that the locations of the stop bars at present require a driver to pull almost all the way out into the intersection to see southbound traffic on 97, and the stop bars could improve that situation. 

Ultimately, such fixes might not be enough to improve the intersection’s safety. 

“I call them almost every year, and they do a little Band-Aid fix, but if they need a traffic study there to solve the problem, I’m going to ask for money from the state to do that,” said Haas. 

Budget season approaches

The town board also heard a report from Haas on the onset of budget season. 

The town’s department heads will start to receive letters asking for their budgets, said Haas. The town will put together a budget in September and October, and hopefully have a finalized budget by election day. 

New York State requires its municipalities to remain under a two percent tax increase for the year. Highland has made that limit as long as Haas has been supervisor, he said. “We’re not going to overspend what they’re asking us to do, and I asked my budget heads to please stay in line also.”