High-risk Taconic crossings to close
ALBANY: The state will close six Dutchess County intersections on the Taconic State Parkway because of the deaths and injuries from accidents.

   The Associated Press

   More than 50 car crashes resulting in injury or death in just four years was enough of a toll for some residents to want to cut off most access to a local highway
   Beginning Monday, the state Department of Transportation will phase in the closing of six of the Taconic State Parkway's busiest median crossings and intersections in Dutchess County, state DOT spokeswoman Colleen McKenna said Tuesday.
   Even folks at Plaza Diner in Hopewell Junction, less than five miles from one of the Taconic's busiest median crossings to be closed, are counting the action as a blessing, rather than calculating lost business and added driving time.
   "Cost is not a consideration compared to a person's life," said Ellen Pionzio, who works at the Hudson Valley diner. Her husband will need to drive a few more minutes from his job because of the closings, but "safety is more of a concern than the added time."
   Even her boss agrees. He hasn't even figured out how much business he might lose.
   "It's the best thing they ever did," said proprietor Tony Varrone.
   Ten people have been killed at these types of crossover intersections off the Taconic in the entire county from 1994-98, according to William Johnson of the Dutchess County Traffic Safety Board. Another died last month at the Carpenter Road intersection, which is scheduled to be closed, he said.
   The accident rate per 1 million vehicles ranges from nearly four times the state average at Hosner Mountain Road to nearly eight times the state average at Carpenter Road, according to state statistics provided Tuesday.
   The "at-grade intersections" allow traffic to cross oncoming lanes of traffic to exit the highway, which has a posted speed limit at 55 mph, Johnson said.
   The increase in traffic, however, has backed up traffic and made the crossing even more difficult. The closings means drivers will have access to the Taconic only through right-hand turns, he said.
   Local officials attribute much of the rise to the Taconic's change from a scenic parkway 70 years ago when it was built to a magnet for development and a highway for growing legions of commuters to jobs in Westchester County and New York City 50 miles to the south.
   Some, however, chalk those statistics up to driver error, something that can't be shut down with a lane, said Peter Idema, town supervisor of nearby East Fishkill. Instead, the state's action will force more traffic into fewer turnoffs not designed for more volume. He said the stretch may get more dangerous.
   "I don't know how anything can be made accident proof," he said Tuesday. "If you read the reports, it's all driver error."
   The state will monitor the traffic flow to see if the changes are helping or hindering safety and whether permanent closings are warranted. The state will also change the timing of traffic lights to improve flow and other safety measures, McKenna said.
   Until then, East Fishkill will be divided by the Taconic, where a one-mile trip today could become a 20-mile roundtrip by summer's end.
   "As a farmer told me, 'Today I live a mile from my friend, soon I'll live 10 miles from my friend,"' Idema said.
   But that means little to people who heard the screeching tires, felt the thud of slamming tons of metal and saw the news reports of crashes that killed people like 15-year-old Chelsea Morrison last year.
   "This is not about local inconvenience," her mother, Jody Morrison, told The New York Times. "This is about people dying; this is about the death of my daughter."
   The mother's emotional plea pushed the Dutchess County Legislature to ask the state in March to close some of the crossings.
   "We've had a lot of problems, a high accident history on certain crossings on the Taconic," the state DOT's McKenna said. 
   "I'm not going to say it isn't going take a person a little longer to get where they're going, but it should be minimal, no more than a few minutes."
   The decision was made after hearings and interviews with county officials, schools, residents and emergency medical workers who respond to accidents along the stretch.
   "Most of the community is behind this," she said. "It's not going to affect people traveling through the county, it's just going to really affect the people living in the area. They are the people at risk."