Massena’s Complete Streets plan on track to ease pedestrian concerns near Leary Junior High

MASSENA -- A village trustee says the village board is making progress as they look into drafting a Complete Streets policy.

“We’re headed in a good direction,” Trustee Matt Lebire said Tuesday.

Complete Streets policies are designed to make municipal roadways friendlier to pedestrians, bicyclists and the disabled, in addition to being safer for cars, Lebire said.

The board started moving talking about Complete Streets in December following pedestrian safety concerns near J. W. Leary Junior High School.

Lebire said the village will take input from groups of citizens.

“We’re hearing from citizens’ advisory committees, so it’s not just one board,” he said.

Some of the changes won’t be “huge capital investments,” he said.

At an April 6 Complete Streets forum, Lebire said some of the talk centered around smaller projects.

“When resurfacing a road or resealing a road, you could stripe in a different manner to make beneficial to bicyclists or pedestrians,” he said. “You could make a curb cut making it more accessible to the differently abled.”