Detouring business

What if you have a business and the state highway leading to it begins to slide away into a creek?

That is the situation facing Victoria Coyne, of Victoria Gardens in Rosendale, a landscaping business and nursery which has seen an entire spring and summer go by as traffic was detoured for emergency repairs off Route 213. Her business has been all but shut down during what should have been her busiest season and she says the state has done almost nothing to help her. ?And with the country”™s roads and infrastructure in D-minus condition, according to the national society of civil engineers, other businesses may someday soon find themselves in a similar plight.

Thirty-three percent of America”™s major roads are in poor or mediocre condition and the current spending level of $70.3 billion for highway capital improvements  is well below the estimated $186 billion needed annually to substantially improve the nation’s highways, according to a 2007 study by the National Surface Transportation Policy commission for the American Society of Civil Engineers. ?A spokeswoman for the Department of Transportation said that New York”™s roads average a 6.8 rating, on a scale where 10 is excellent, 7 is good and 5 is poor.

Information about the percentage of  New York roads in poor condition was not available, but Melissa Slater, assistant to the regional director in DOT Region 8, said that while funding for highway work is flat or declining, costs are rising.?“The road closure has had a big impact,” said Coyne, standing inside her quiet store at the corner of Cottekill Road and Route 213 on a recent Monday morning. She said that since the road was closed about a  half-mile from her shop on March 11, business has dwindled to nearly nothing in her storefront, even though the detour route leads right past her store. She said most people are apparently just avoiding the road.

“The DOT has been mostly unfriendly, but I  have gotten some information out of them,” Coyne said.

“I asked again and again and again for them to change their flashing signs, that made it feel like you are going to fall off the end of the  earth if you come to Rosendale,” she said, of the DOT temporary billboards reading in flashing red letters, Caution Caution, Road Closed, Local Traffic Only.?“The DOT doesn”™t take into consideration how their projects affect business,” she said.

The signs weren”™t even  accurate, since there was a detour that could accommodate all traffic, but said she was forced to make repeated calls to her state assemblyman”™s office before the DOT would correct the sign. She also invested in her own sign to place alongside the flashing DOT sign. She suggested the DOT initiate appointing an ombudsman to work with businesses and residences in affected areas.

She said weekend visitors and residents are particularly put off by the detour, which takes motorists leaving Rosendale on a scenic but extremely windy trip along narrow back roads without shoulders. ?Coyne said her longstanding landscaping business is helping make up the difference but the garden shop is at an all time low for customers.  She said she has inquired with the town of Rosendale and her state representative regarding assistance or tax breaks a business could utilize when suffering from a road closing, but said she has heard nothing back.  ?The DOT says it hopes to reopen the road by the end of October.