Stop and go? DOT pulls premature Route 22 closure signs in North Salem

NORTH SALEM, N.Y. - Red means stop, green means go, and yellow means ... never mind?

Motorists were confused recently by DOT signs flashing a start date of Oct. 12 for the Route 22 culvert project in North Salem.

But they were turned on “prematurely” and should have been, as of this writing, turned off, according to information recently provided to the town.

On Tuesday, Sept. 29, Supervisor Warren Lucas alerted folks that the town had received an email from Nikhil Natarajan, the DOT’s Region 8 deputy regional director, acknowledging the glitch and noting that the agency was “still working with the contractor to finalize the start date based on the construction schedule and other factors.”

“We will continue to work to provide as much lead time as possible prior to the road closure but want to make sure the date is solid so that any actions at the local level are based on the most accurate information possible,” Lucas promised.

The DOT released the following statement on Thursday, Oct. 1:

“Earlier this week, a contractor working for the New York State Department of Transportation mistakenly activated variable message signs pertaining to the closure of State Route 22. A start date for this important culvert replacement project has not yet been established and NYSDOT is working with our contractor to finalize the construction schedule. The signs have been deactivated and NYSDOT will keep the public and local officials informed of further developments.”

Once the project is underway, Route 22 will be closed at Valeria Circle. Work is expected to take eight or more weeks to complete. The timeline will depend on the weather and other factors.

One lane has already been shut due to the compromised infrastructure.

A few days prior to the mea culpa, Lucas hopped on a conference call with Natarajan, Region 8 Director Julianna Fuda, other DOT personnel, Lewisboro Supervisor Tony Goncalves, North Salem Police Chief Tom Howley, Deputy Supervisor Peter Kamenstein, and the town’s highway superintendent and deputy superintendent, James DePaoli and Gayle Soto.

The takeaway was that the DOT was working with its contractor and didn’t have a closure date yet.

“They have told us they will be giving us notice of hopefully a few days before the closure. They can’t directly control the contractor and the day they start; that is dependent on people, machinery, and other items they need for the job,” Lucas noted in a social media post.

To make matters worse, two lanes of I-684, north- and southbound, are already closed for repairs, Lucas said.

Once those lanes are finished, the DOT will be moving the Jersey barriers and working on the next lane on I-684 until all six are done.

This means that the major highway won’t have three lanes open “for quite some time,” which will push traffic onto side roads such as Routes 138, 116, 121, 35, 100 and 202.

“This is what makes this harder to deal with,” Lucas said of the culvert project.

Meanwhile, there are the detours to worry about.

Traffic above Valeria Circle will have to go north on Route 22 to Purdys, then west onto Route 116 into Somers, then south on Routes 100 and 138 to Goldens Bridge in order to get back onto Route 22 south.

I-684 south can be accessed from Exit 7 in Purdys, but Exit 6A in Golden’s Bridge is configured for northbound traffic only.

Lucas said that it’s expected that Morris Road and both Valeria Circle entrances onto Route 22 will be closed to through traffic.

All traffic in the Candlewood Lake development will have to take Valeria Circle to Nash Road, then go right on Route 22 and then south to Goldens Bridge.

If someone wants to go north on Route 22, they would have to take Route 138 to Somers, then to Route 100 and then Route 116 to get back on Route 22.

Local traffic will not be able to exit from Valeria Circle and Morris Road onto Route 22, either north- or southbound.

The DOT’s contractor plans to use an area near the Candlewood Park dam to stage some equipment, Lucas said, adding that the site will be cleaned up and “returned to its original or better state” once the culvert project is complete.

The town is also providing the DOT with a temporary easement to work on the east side of Route 22.

That’s needed because there’s “insufficient room” for crews to install the new culvert “without being over their property line,” he explained.

DOT civil engineer David Parker has advised the town to close Valeria Circle and Morris Road to through traffic because the bridge in Valeria Circle isn’t wide enough to allow “proper two-way traffic.” If left open, vehicles could back up into the development “for miles in both directions.”

“There is no good scenario. The best thing we can do is to have them take the entire road and get the work done in as short a time as possible,” Lucas said.