Archive: Around Town

You may have noticed that road construction on the Triphammer project came to a virtual halt and traffic has been flowing fairly smoothly for the past few weeks.  That's because Suit-Coat, the contractor on the job, has been helping with disaster recovery in Binghamton after the flood there on June 28.  "It was an emergency situation," explains Village of Lansing Mayor Donald Hartill.  "They asked us whether that would be OK and we said, 'Yes.'"

Pyramid Drive will be widened and divided into five lanes to accommodate through traffic as well as turn lanes.

But Hartill does not anticipate that the break will significantly put the project off schedule.  "Probably the biggest effort remaining is to reconfigure Pyramid Drive," says Hartill.  He also says another layer of blacktop will be applied along Triphammer Road.  A skeleton crew has been working on sidewalks while major construction has been temporarily halted.  

Two truckers died on Route 88 near Binghamton when their trucks plunged 25 feet into a hole created by a culvert that had collapsed in the flood caused when the Susquehanna River crested at almost 25 feet, 14 feet above its flood level.  "I had to drive through part of it to pick up a part for my antique tractor in Oxford, and I got trapped twice on culverts that were gone and things like that," Hartill says.  Governor Pataki has estimated that the damage could be around $100 million.


The Triphammer crew was supposed to be back this week, but Hartill says it will be a bit longer.  "My impression is that it will be another week or so, perhaps two weeks."  In addition to road work sidewalks and landscaping has yet to be completed.  More street lights will be installed and hooked up to electricity.

The Mayor says that Pyramid Drive will present the biggest challenge once construction begins again.  "Right now that's a four lane solution," he explains.  "We had to close off the left turn lane, because there very quickly developed a conflict of the two left turns trying to go crossways.  It's quite dangerous, so we've closed off the second left turn on Triphammer. There will actually be a five lane portion of Pyramid Drive amid that transition.  That's going to involve cutting the current roadway down to level it, and it will be slightly widened to accommodate the five lanes, and there will be a sidewalk."


Village officials have been generally pleased with progress and traffic control.  They say that while people are annoyed by delays they say that the traffic flow is being handled as well as possible.  "It's coming along as expected, " says Hartill, who is looking forward to a grand opening ceremony some time in September or early October.

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