Village may re-evaluate Brockport's Main Street closing for events

Village may re-evaluate
Brockport's Main Street closing for events

"An accident waiting to happen" is how Joan Hamlin described the closure of Brockport's Main Street for events such as the recent sidewalk sale.

"There were big problems with traffic on Park Avenue with the traffic and with the big trucks trying to make the turns," she said at the July 17 (village) board meeting. "Can you limit parking to only one side of the road?"

Fire chief Laurence Vaughan agreed. "The street closures limit ambulance and fire truck access. If we have a simple pan fire in a house, the closures would wreak havoc," he said. "Every time the streets are closed we are taking a risk."

Mayor Mort Wexler said that the issue of the safety of the community was an issue raised during the sidewalk sale. "We might have to leave Main Street open and have the vendors put their booths as close to the sidewalks as possible so emergency vehicles could get down the roads," he said.

Because of the closure of the Smith Street bridge, if Main Street is closed and that bridge isn't open for vehicle traffic, cars are shifted to the Park Avenue bridge.

"If you take a state road like Route 19 and divert 20,000 cars a day (like we have on Thursday or Friday) you are going to create a traffic jam," Police Chief Dan Varrenti said. "If you are closing streets, then the village has to think about paying the money to position officers to direct traffic. If the money isn't there to prevent an accident, the village may be looking at the money to pay out after in the event of a law suit."

"With the Smith Street bridge closed, we can't continue to do business as usual and grant street closures to organizations that ask for them," Wexler said. "It's nice to have a bed race or sidewalk sale but the safety of the community has to come first. We may have to start saying 'no' to closing Main Street."

Wexler mentioned making changes to the layout of vendor booths during the upcoming Arts Festival.

"It's hard to make changes two weeks before the event when the coordinators have been in the planning phase for the past nine months," Trustee Carrie Maziarz said. "They already have their maps made up for the vendors."

Vaughan said no one wants to curtail the events, but the officials have to think of the worst case scenarios and prepare for them. "Safety has to come first," he said.

Hamlin also raised issues with delivery trucks that park on Main Street - some with their wheels over the yellow line. "Double parking is bad enough but you have to cross into the other side of traffic (when they park like this)," she said.

In other matters the village is looking to work with Dr. Goetze on a National Walk Your Child to School event on October 4. They are talking with school officials and Walk! Bike! members to look at the routes the children would be taking.