RT 2 (CONGRESS & FERRY)
On Monday, March 17, 2025, the City of Troy announced in a press release Mayor Mantello’s approval of project designs for the Congress and Ferry Street Project. The approved design option features a 12-foot travel lane, a 10-foot parking lane, a 3-foot buffer space, and an 8-foot biking lane.
Unfortunately, all of the options presented by the City for this project have some pretty glaring flaws, but this “option” is a massive disappointment and a true disservice to the entire community relying on Mayor Mantello to improve the corridor. Out of the three (really four) options presented by the City, this one is by far the weakest and was clearly the least preferred by the community at the public meetings.
The City needs to seize this opportunity to deliver real quality of life improvements for the community that create a welcoming, vibrant and walkable corridor, and that support local businesses through design via this project — and this option isn’t it!
The City's project team created this website with more info — which includes the chosen alternative concept, 1A - One-Way Buffered Bicycle Lanes.
Out of the alternatives presented, 1A is by far the weakest. It shows a 10' parking lane, a 12' drive lane' and a buffered bike lane. If you've spent time on Congress and Ferry, you don't need us to tell you that double parking is a major issue. Anyone who has witnessed the rampant double parking on Congress and Ferry knows that a “buffer” (which is just paint) will be used for parking. Without an actual protected bike lane (like curbing or barriers, etc), this buffered bike lane does little to nothing to improve biking on the corridor. The buffered bike lane does nothing to protect people trying to use it and meet residents' needs.
In fact, residents have already begun to (rightfully) express concern that this bike lane won’t stay a bike lane, as there is already so much double parking on Congress. 12 ft lanes are also too wide for urban contexts. They increase crossing distances for people walking, encourage people to speed more while driving, and it's just a poor use of valuable space. The max lane width in our cities should be 11', especially when there's a bike lane.
Capital Streets recently put out an article on lane width, which you can check out here.
We've communicated these points to the project team, including the City's Planner, the City's consultants working on the project, and the administration directly since late 2023 and several times as the project has (slowly) evolved. The only people who benefit from this design alternative are people trying to speed through our Downtown, so it's very unclear why this option was chosen. The City has not provided any justification for choosing these design elements that will perform more poorly than the others.
Also, despite claims of “extensive public engagement,” the City actually did the absolute bare minimum to engage with the community on this project, to the point where some of the corridor's biggest stakeholders didn't even know the project was happening.
Capital Streets has met with several of the stakeholders over the past month, including RPI, United Group, Sunhee's, the Ruck, and others — everyone is relying on the Mantello administration to make the most of this, but as far as public engagement goes, there was nothing “extensive” about it.
This project, with $9.5 million in funding, is one of the biggest opportunities Downtown Troy gets, and this administration is going to waste it.
We need better, safer, more attractive streets in Downtown Troy to give our businesses a better chance at thriving - to make people want to live here - and this proposed option does the least.
“As an attendee of both meetings that the City and Creighton-Manning organized, the sentiment from [residents] was clear: the traffic on Route 2 is too dangerous because cars are consistently reaching speeds of +50mph on some stretches with no clear space for bicyclists. The [residents] voiced clear support of a concrete barrier on Congress Street to protect families and children against these irresponsible drivers. The City of Troy continues to take the cheap option, and not commit to its people.”
If Downtown Troy's safety, vibrancy, and ability to thrive is important to you, you should speak up! And there are many ways to do that…
Contact the Mayor's Office: troyny.gov/formcenter/Mayors-Office-13/Contact-the-Mayors-Office-93
Contact your City Council Member: troyny.gov/315/City-Council
You can also sign the community letter below!
Community Letter
We have sent a letter* to Mayor Mantello, urging her attention to the NY Rt 2 project and calling on The City to create a welcoming, vibrant, and walkable corridor through this project. This letter is co-signed by various local businesses, and we continue to collect signatures in support of our call on leadership.
Signees in Support Include
Leah Rapp Tattoo
*This letter was originally written and signed by the above prior to the March 17th, 2025 City of Troy press release, which has only made its message more urgent and pertinent in the wake of and in response to Mayor Mantello’s announcement.
There are no changes to the Congress St Bridge included in this project. Where once a concept was shared demonstrating the Congress St Bridge going to a two lane bridge, with one lane in each direction of travel and the other "half" of the bridge devoted to pedestrian space, this administration has not mentioned anything about advancing that component of the plan, which certainly could have been part of this project.
The Congress St Bridge Study (published in 2021) highlights the cost of the shared use path on the bridge. In 2021, the estimates were $0.9-2.3 million, which included a 25% contingency. With $0.9 million, the path would be more bare bones, the divider between the path and drive lanes might be more like jersey barriers. With $2.3 million, it would be totally decked out with benches and lighting, greenery, etc. Of course, construction costs have gone up since 2021, but this is still doable within this project.
There has been no justification for why this concept has not been included in the project.
Pictured is a concept for Congress and 8th by Capital Streets. We hope that this sparks conversation on what could exist at this pivotal intersection vs. what the current “approved” concept offers (see project website).
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Existing Conditions
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Alternative 1A (CITY PROVIDED CONCEPT)
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Alternative 1A (CITY PROVIDED CONCEPT)
SIGN COMMUNITY LETTER
Add your name to the letter to show your support of improving quality of life along the corridor.
If you agree that we need streets in Troy that better connect our community and foster sustainable economic development, and that this city “approved” concept is not sufficient to do so, please sign on below.
Feel free to submit additional comments and thoughts in the message section as well
— we want to hear from you!