Archive: News

Ludlowville has been a thriving community that boasted mills, a dry goods and grocery store, its own post office, churches, a school, and was even the location for silent films in the early 1900s.  Today it is largely residential.  The rustic hamlet is like a bowl -- it is below Lansingville to the north, and downhill from the Lansing school campus -- and that means when it rains, Ludlowville floods.  Despite a $480,000 county flood mitigation project in 2013, portions of Ludlowville still flooded, especially during the torrential rains the area suffered this year in July.  This fall the Lansing Highway Department did quite a bit of work to fix that. The work had already been scheduled for late summer, but the rains didn't feel like waiting.

"We took 75% of Ludlowville and improved it this year," says Highway Superintendent Charlie 'Cricket' Purcell. "The work had been scheduled, ideally, for the month of August, because I was trying to schedule it in conjunction with Red Bridge being completed.  Unfortunately we had the 'monsoons' that we had in July, and some people had substantial damage.  It wasn't a knee-jerk reaction to do this project after the fact.  It had been planned for two years, and was on the docket for August.  Unfortunately we had that unusual July."


It made sense to wait for the Tompkins County highway Department to complete repairs to Red Bridge so a portion of Salmon Creek Road could all be paved at once, and Purcell and his crew had big plans for that area.

"We had looked at it for a couple of years, realizing there were drainage, pedestrian and traffic safety issues," he says.  "The road pitched in places, was narrow in spots, wide in others, shoulders and things like that.  Drainage issues were, obviously, some of the biggest pieces there.  We installed enclosed drainage that can drain the whole of the spot that never had anywhere to get out.  If there are heavy rains again it will have a path to exit, rather than just come up and run into folks' basements or yards.  The biggest part was Salmon Creek Road.  Drainage issues have always been a problem and sight distance, as well as the width of the road.  We addressed all of that in one swoop."

Unfortunately weather didn't look at the Highway Department calendar before dumping heavy rains on the area last July.  As culverts filled and became blocked the water didn't have anywhere to go.  That caused damage to some of the houses there, in particular a log home over Salmon Creek.

"In July we had the 'monsoons' there where a couple of the houses, one in particular, took on some heavy damage from the water when the pipes plugged up from the water that comes off the side hills," Purcell explains.  "Things washed down from above and plugged the pipe.  The water jumped up on the road, and unfortunately the easiest path was to the north west corner of their house."

Major reconstruction work was also done to a dip in Salmon Creek Road near the Lansing Rod & Gun Club, just below Red Bridge.  Along with  drainage improvements, the Town acquired an easement from one of the landowners to drain the low spot of the road.  Other residents also cooperated so the road could be widened in spots.

"It gave it a little more room for pedestrians and bicycles to feel more comfortable," Purcell says.  "That road is used a lot for recreation.  We made it standard width and implemented a lot of drainage (solutions), so when the heavy rains come a lot of the folks don't have to fret as much.  We installed rip-rap to slow down the flow of water and stabilize the banks that were being eroded.  We up-sized the cross culverts so they won't plug up as easily if there is a drastic rain that overflows the road again."


Roughly 1,500 tons of gravel was used to change the profile of the road, removing dips and rises that impaired drivers' vision.  The old asphalt was milled off the road, then a grader was brought in to build the sub-base and add new material - a combination of bank run gravel, crushed gravel and crushed limestone -  to make the road profile more even, essentially filling the dips that make driving on some New York roads like riding a roller coaster.


"Now when you come across Red Bridge you can see ahead of you, rather than a blind knoll," says Purcell. "I think, at the end of the day, it gives comfort to the folks that live there as well as the people who use the road for recreation, and the people that travel it.  I wanted to make sure we weren't encouraging people to drive faster through there -- I just wanted it to be safer for everybody." 


Mill Street and Maple Avenue were repaved with new asphalt and drainage problems were also addressed.  Purcell says he would love to do some work on Dug Road, a spot where mills used to take advantage of the proximity to Salmon Creek, and now a collection of private homes.  But he says the bridge there is not rated for the heavy equipment he would need to use.

"At some point the County will probably have to do something with that bridge as well," he says.  "I would like to do some work on Dug Road.  We're limited as to what we can do right now because of the bridge's weight limit.   Even if I wanted to repave that I'd have to do it with darn near wheelbarrows and shovels.  We don't want to push our luck on that bridge."


The Lansing Highway Department has been busy this season.  In June a major project to mitigate drainage and create walkable shoulders on Myers Road was completed.  East Lansing Road was resurfaced, and a sizable box culvert was installed in the Horizons development.  In July the highway crew spent three weeks restoring roads and ditches after the flooding.  A culvert was replaced on Cayuga Vista and resurfaced with hot mix asphalt.  Stonehaven Drive, Brookhaven Drive, and Belvedere Drive were also resurfaced with hot mix asphalt, and surface treated about 8 miles of road with stone and oil.  The Highway Department also helped with a few Village projects and conducted the annual brush pickups in the Town and Village.

"We took 75% of Ludlowville and improved it this year," Purcell says.  "The rest of the year also consisted of everyday ditch cleaning, replacing driveway culverts, road cross culverts, drainage improvements, brush work, miscellaneous asphalt patch work, waterline repairs and maintenance, sewer maintenance, replacing and maintaining signage as well as roadside mowing. and a multitude off anything else that comes up.  We'll look at a few odds and ends in Ludlowville to finish next year, but the major stuff was done."

v13i47