I have lived on Upper East Side Brook Road for 20 years. It was my great good fortune when I was riding my bike in 2004 and saw this house was for sale. It was the perfect place to retire. My parents had bought land above my house around 1980, and I’d walk the length of the road to get to their camp and then home again to Townsend Street where I grew up. The appeal has always been the quiet and beauty of the road and land.
I’ve gotten to know Upper East Brook in my nearly 50 years of walking. The people on the road are tight-knit, helpful, and caring. We mourn deaths and celebrate new children and grandchildren. We watch each other’s houses, take in each other’s mail, and rescue garbage cans that have blown down the road. We show up with tools and chainsaws. We are a neighborhood. We have our differences to be sure, but in that, we are like any community.
Recently, my friends and neighbors discovered that the Town Board of Walton decided it would make no difference to us to make an ATV trailhead on our road. The town board filled out a SEAF (Short Environmental Assessment form) (https://extapps.dec.ny.gov/docs/permits_ej_operations_pdf/seafpartone.pdf) and answered “no” to the following two questions from the SEAF concerning the road we live on:
2. Will the proposed action impair the character or quality of the existing community?
5. Will the proposed action result in an adverse change in the existing infrastructure for mass transit, biking, or walkway?
Imagine our surprise—more accurately, shock and horror. Although Upper East Brook Road supports a lot of traffic for motorists and utility trucks going to the west side of town or on to Sidney Center or Oneonta, it is also a road for walkers, cyclists, joggers, and runners from both the road and the village. A woman from town even walks with a baby carriage. At least 12 people walk on the road on a daily basis. Some do the entire road two times a day. We walk together. We walk alone. We walk with our pets. Several people jog on it, some with their dogs. Runners from the high school have used the road for practice. Outside college teams have brought a bus and run on it as well. Cyclists are on the road from spring to fall. We like it. Often a journey on the road takes forever, because we stop and talk. Cars drive by and park on the side of the road, and we stop and talk. It’s that kind of road.
Not only were the town board’s answers on the SEAF incorrect, not a single resident was approached by the town board about this proposed proposal—not even the people whose properties border the trailhead.
We weren’t consulted, and we have no vote.
Making Upper East Brook an access would drastically alter the character of the road. There will not only be more traffic on the road—ATVs going in both directions—the road will become hazardous for all walkers, cyclists, runners, motorists, and those on ATVs as well. Further, ATVs operate at 90 decibels—15 to 20 times higher than cars and pickups. Because of the shorter exhaust systems on ATVs, they release more fuel and sulfur. So, more ATVs, higher decibels; more ATVs, more exhaust. Finally there is a hairpin turn at the beginning (or end depending) of Mount Pleasant Road, and there is a dangerous corner at the proposed Upper East Brook trailhead. The crossing on East Brook Road (CR 22) is at the bottom of a hill for vehicles coming from Dunk Hill, Upper East Brook Road, and East Brook Road traffic-another danger for motorists and ATVs.
A parking area for trailers on Nichols Road would take care of all of these concerns.
In terms of law enforcement, there is no plan for additional support on the road. The sheriff’s department says the town approved it, so it’s a town thing. The town says it only approved the road access and have nothing to do with the trails themselves, and the village police are not responsible. The police say they have been put in a very difficult position, which they have been.
No one on the road is against ATVs. And we think an ATV Club is a great idea. We have them and ride them on our own property. But Upper East Brook is an unfit choice for a trailhead. We feel the town board made a hurried and agenda-driven decision. We ask that the board revisit the SEAF and answer the questions correctly.
If you’re concerned about the road becoming an ATV access road in the future, please attend the public hearing Monday, April 13 at 6 p.m., at the Walton Theatre on Gardiner Place.
Sally Cranston
Walton
