By CRAIG FREILICH

CANTON – The long-discussed issue of improving road transportation across the North Country gets its next airing Jan. 30 in Canton at an information meeting hosted by the state Department of Transportation on their latest effort, the North Country Access Improvements Study.

This latest study, being generated by a Stakeholder Advisory Committee of village, town and county officials, business leaders and transportation professionals, is concentrating on ideas around improving U.S. Rt. 11 between Canton and Potsdam, possibly with bypass features for both villages.

The meeting will be held in the Eben Holden Conference Center at St. Lawrence University.

Some details of the meeting, including the time it will start, are still being worked out, according to NYSDOT Region 7 Public Information Officer Michael Flick in Watertown.

“It will be an evening meeting, but we’re still finalizing the time,” Flick said.

He said it is not an official hearing on the study or on any further action it might propose. “It is being held to gather comment on the work to date.” That work will be summarized and some alternatives will be presented, and public feedback will be solicited, Flick said.

People can get a look at much of the study work on the DOT web site at https://www.dot.ny.gov/ncaccessstudy.

Two Pronged Study

The North Country Access Improvements Study has two main parts. The first is a study of road transportation in the area of Canton and Potsdam along the U.S. Rt. 11 corridor, including a variety of bypass alternatives, their costs and economic benefits, and recommendations aimed at improving traffic flow and other conditions.

The second portion of the study will provide a “fatal-flaw” analysis of how well the 2002 North Country Transportation Study and 2008 Northern Tier Expressway Study answered related questions and put forward workable ideas.

According to the DOT, “US Rt. 11 along this corridor has one lane in each direction. At some locations, it travels through downtown villages with mixed residential and business zoning, featuring vehicle and pedestrian traffic, and a low speed limit. At other locations it is a more rural, residential connecting route with a higher speed limit. The average daily traffic ranges from more than 18,000 vehicles per day in the busiest village section to a low of approximately 8,800 vehicles per day along the more rural section.”

In addition, DOT says on the web site, “The findings from this portion of the North Country Access Improvements Study will be summarized in a series of Technical Memorandums completed at various milestones. These will become part of the Final Report. Included in the Final Report will be the selection of the preferred alternative. The preferred alternative will then be developed into a Final Project Scoping Report,” due this summer, which would define an actual project.

A "Reports" section on the DOT site includes those earlier reports from 2002 and 2008 and the more recent Stakeholder Advisory Group reports and presentations compiled as part of the North Country Access Improvements Study process, including maps.

An assortment of ideas for boosting road traffic have circulated over the last 50 years or more, in the form of a “Rooftop Highway,” envisioned in recent years by some as “I-98,” an Interstate-standard limited-access multi-lane superhighway between Watertown and Plattsburgh costing billions of dollars.

That plan was supported by the Northern Corridor Transportation Group, whose spokesperson Jason Clark explained would be worth the expense in construction costs and disruption to the landscape with the delivery of economic benefits from construction jobs first and business development thereafter.

Political support

In his State of the State message in January 2014, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced his plan to study the feasibility of creating a new east-west interstate highway across the North Country, and North Country Senators Patricia Ritchie, R-Heuvelton, and Joseph Griffo, R-Rome, and Assemblywoman Addie Jenne, D-Theresa, praised the governor’s support.

Meanwhile a Canton-based group, YESeleven, led by John Casserly and John Danis, opposed the I-98 Interstate Highway plan and instead proposed a more modest, less expensive and less disruptive set of upgrades and bypasses along U.S. Rt. 11 to improve transportation along the “rooftop” of the North Country.

The latest attempt at devising a workable plan, the recent Stakeholder Advisory Committee reports, will be presented at two public information meetings, the first of which is the Jan. 30 meeting.

$2.5 million has been allocated to fund this latest study, according to the DOT.

The North Country Access Improvements Study is expected to be completed by fall 2018, when a second public information meeting will be held to present the findings of the study.

Written comments can be sent to NYSDOT at 317 Washington Street, Watertown, NY 13601 or can be submitted via email at michael.flick@dot.ny.gov. The public may call 315-785-2218 for more information.