Jackson Ave. Residents Continue to Fear Traffic Influx

Residents of Jackson Avenue continue to be concerned about increased traffic on their street resulting from the reconfigured parking lot planned on the YMCA property as part of its expansion.

Jackson Avenue, a residential street of about a dozen homes, is accessed from Main Street to the east of which creates its own traffic. The street is also accessed during certain hours by drivers picking up students at the YMCA's day care buildings.

But residents say that an additional parking lot, which the YMCA has agreed to share during its off hours with the Cinema Arts Centre, will cause more people to use Jackson as a cut-through from Park Avenue, on which the YMCA and cinema entries are located.

"I live at the house on the corner. I'm sure you have seen my house. '52 Jackson' is painted on my garage door. That is French for 'please don't park in my driveway,'" Jennifer Dworkin told the Town Board Tuesday. "Today I was almost killed by someone from the YMCA on their cell phone, barreling through. So to give them access through Park Avenue means I am going to die and it will be the town's fault, not just the person who rammed us over with their BMWs. Help us, please. We love Town Hall. We pay our taxes but we are constantly in danger from this. The YMCA doesn't pay taxes, we do. We are the taxpayers."

Dworkin, who has expressed her opposition to the parking lot to the town since at least 2004, according to town records, showed the board photographs of a bus stuck in her lawn and cars that don't belong to her parked in her driveway.

She noted that often the only way that ambulances and other vehicles transporting emergency medical personnel can get to the other houses on Jackson is over her lawn.

Another Jackson Avenue resident said that her husband has emphysema and she already has concerns about ambulance's ability to reach her property quickly and her own ability to leave her property.

"We love Town Hall. We wouldn't change it for anything," she said. "But please close this off so we can get out of our driveways."