Way too many tractor-trailers and not enough single-family housing.
Those two topics were brought up by a trio of Batavia residents during the public comments segment of Monday night’s City Council Conference Meeting at City Hall Council Chambers, and prompted some vigorous discussion among Council members.
First it was Rachel Curtin and her husband, Jacob Bodway, of Richmond Avenue expressing their dismay over the constant and heavy flow of semis either heading from or heading to the Thruway exit on Route 98 (Oak Street).
The truck traffic is “limiting our promise and potential,” Curtin said, adding that they pass by the Peace Garden (on Main Street) that “we can’t really see” (due to the big rigs blocking it) as they head down to Route 63.
Calling it a “major issue” that adversely affects people living in the vicinity of Route 98, she said the noise can be heard early in the morning and goes on throughout the day.
Her husband agreed, noting that he counted 30 semis in a 10-minute span, which translates to “150 in an hour, thousands in a day.”
“I’ve seen traffic stopped from Main Street past Richmond (Avenue),” he said. “I don’t feel safe going downtown as I ride my bike; I’m worried about getting hit by a semi.”
Bodway said he wished that something could be done to reroute the trucks to create a “safer environment.”
“The cost of my home value has gone down, I think, and the noise is obnoxious,” he said. “I urge you to keep this in your mind.”
City Council response: What can we do?
Council Member John Canale said he feels the couple’s pain, noting that several residents in his Third Ward have contacted him about not only the amount but also the speed of the trucks on Route 98.
“Since it’s a state highway, maybe if we enforced the speed limit dramatically on that street it might discourage truck traffic,” he said.
Canale added that he’s hearing this from predominantly “young couples and young families, and that’s who we’re trying to invite to live here … that demographic.”
“We have a deer problem and we’re looking into it, and we have a truck problem, so let’s look into it,” he said.
Council Member Paul Viele called out state Department of Transportation engineers for changing Route 98 from a four-lane to a two-lane highway – “whose bright idea was that to have one lane? That’s a disaster,” he said, but Jankowski and Bialkowski noted that it was done to slow traffic down.
“It (one lane per direction) does work,” Jankowski said. “It’s the Jake brake that rattles your windows when it comes through. It is a state highway. How do we divert them away from a road that originally was built for truck traffic?”
Suggestions made included: reaching out to state lawmakers Steven Hawley or Michael Ranzenhofer; having police write more speeding tickets; asking the state DOT to hold a public information meeting; and charging a fee for using Route 98 in the City (which is not possible since the City has no jurisdiction concerning a state road).
Much of the semi traffic in the City boils down to a dollars-and-cents issue -- truckers take routes 98 and 63 in Batavia to avoid the high tolls on the Thruway from Buffalo to Rochester.
If only New York State would waive the tolls for the big rigs getting off the Thruway between exits 46 and 50 …
Batavia becoming a tenant-based city?
The couple was followed by Sam DiSalvo, a resident of Main Street, who surmised that high closing costs for single-family homes and a declining selection of the same are making it “very difficult for a young person to get housing (in the City).”
DiSalvo said that he has learned that 58 percent of housing in the City is rental property.
“If that increases by another 8 percent, it will be 2 to 1 (ratio),” he said. “Batavia is turning toward a tenant-based city.”
He suggested three ways that Batavia can, in his words, “turn it back around and combat the housing issue”:
- Have City officials offer a landlord training class, similar to what Buffalo does;
- Offer a tax break to first-time homebuyers to buy a house downtown, similar to what has been done in Rochester to attract people to move into the city;
- Give a tax break to those who have owned and lived in their home for a certain number of years (20, for example).
Council Member Robert Bialkowski agreed that 58 percent of the living spaces in the City are not single-family homes, but explained that the number includes apartment complexes that could have 150 living spaces.
Council Member Rose Mary Christian mentioned that PathStone has a landlord program and that the City allows background checks for landlords while Council President Eugene Jankowski said he hoped that landlords have legal advice as he was “worried about the cost” of a City-sponsored landlord course and about the dissemination of wrong information.
“If erroneous … we’re liable for that,” he said.
