Hoehm Town Happenings: Infrastructure Alert

One of the things I am most proud of during these past eight years as Supervisor is my administration’s investment in replacing aging infrastructure. This includes over $40,000,000 in capital projects improving our community centers, pools, roads, and bridges. The infrastructure we take for granted in our daily lives such as bridges and roadways does not last forever. Eventually, these structures need to be replaced and doing so often involves significant short-term inconvenience.

One local necessary project that will bring long term benefits, but short term inconvenience is the Snake Hill Road Bridge in West Nyack. Starting on Monday, April 3rd, the Town will demolish and replace the Snake Hill Road Bridge with an anticipated completion date of September.

The bridge is owned by the County of Rockland, however, the Town is responsible for the bridge approaches and the top layer of asphalt. The project will be managed by the Town of Clarkstown Department of Engineering and Facilities Management staff. Thankfully, much of the $2.5 million dollar project will be funded through a State grant we received for the project several yearsago. Safety is the primary reason the bridge needs to be replaced. The bridge deck, the approaching roadway surfaces, the drainage system, and the substructure are all in need of extensive repairs which makes replacement the most sensible and cost-effective solution. Detour signs will be posted along Old Mill and Snake Hill Roads. It would be best to avoid the area, especially during peak times.

Snake Hill Road from Palisades Center Drive will remain open to traffic up to the intersection of Crusher Road. However, there will be no access to Snake Hill Road from traffic coming from Old Mill Road. We know this will be a painful process for those who travel the area. The bridge is located in a heavily traveled corridor, as Snake Hill Road provides access to the New York State Thruway and the Palisades Center Mall. We looked to mitigate this disruption as best we could with aggressive, but realistic timelines.

The timing is also designed to confine the majority of the work to the summer, keeping school traffic disruptions to a minimum. With the new building materials being used, the life expectancy of the bridge is estimated to be 50 to 75 years, meaning most of us won’t be here when the bridge needs to be replaced!

During the past eight years we have resurfaced well over two hundred miles of our three hundred mile town owned roads. We have rebuilt Germonds Pool, Lake Nanuet, Congers Pool, added a dog park, pickleball courts and created the first two new parks in over two decades. We have done work in every community center, town hall and the police station. We have replaced the Western Highway

Bridge, Hall Avenue Culvert, and protected hundreds of homes from flooding with drainage improvement projects like Klein Avenue and Cranford Drive. While some of these projects caused a temporary inconvenience they were necessary for maintaining our town infrastructure and ultimately our safety. I look forward to the quick and speedy completion of yet another critical infrastructure project in our town that will insure the safety of those in our town well into the next century.