מען גייט שוין בויען נייע מעין ראוד נעבן קרית יואל

Route 17 relief road advances
Monroe sees traffic solution

By Chris McKenna
Times Herald-Record
[email protected]

Monroe - Call it the Wal-Mart expressway. Or the Route 17 detour. Or Route 17M's speedy cousin.

Plans are moving forward to extend Larkin Drive in Monroe to create a major service road running parallel to Route 17 that is supposed to relieve growing traffic congestion in a swath of southeastern Orange County.

The new road section would stretch a mile and a half between Routes 105 and 208, crossing through what is now mostly undeveloped land on the south side of Route 17. On its western end, it would merge with entrance and exit ramps at the intersection of Routes 17 and 208.

Orange County and local officials who have been planning road improvements in southeastern Orange for several years expect the Larkin Drive extension to siphon cars from Routes 17 and 17M by creating a third east-west path across Monroe.

Larkin Drive now runs from Route 105 in Monroe to Route 17 (the north-south version) in Woodbury and provides access to Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Target and the other stores in the Harriman Commons shopping center.

Extending the road would forge a streamlined path for shoppers coming from Blooming Grove, Kiryas Joel and western Monroe, enabling them to avoid Route 17 and Village of Monroe traffic.

The extension would also improve access to Kiryas Joel from Route 17.

The state Department of Transportation has budgeted $751,000 to design the road. The federal government would contribute $600,000 and the state would kick in $113,000. That leaves $38,000 for the county and municipalities to split.

Approached Tuesday night by a traffic engineer working for the Town of Monroe, Village of Monroe officials said they support the project but can't afford to share the cost.

The road could be a ******* for people who own otherwise inaccessible land beside 17 - all ripe for development once Larkin Drive crosses it. Much of that property is zoned for light industry and business.

But developers hoping to build beside the new service road will find strict limits on the number of entrances onto the new road, county Planning Commissioner David Church said yesterday.

The state, the county and the Town of Monroe are sorting out which entity will take charge of the project and own the new road. Once they decide, the agency in charge will hire a firm to design the road, which should take less than a year, Church said.