Legislative Watch 
LEGISLATIVE
Font Resize
 |
|
10/20/05-Now-muted roadside call boxes along the Adirondack Northway would come to life under a proposal from three state lawmakers.
Some remote stretches of the highway that runs north of Albany to the Canadian border are notorious for being cell phone “dead zones.” Calls for three portable cellular towers and two-way radios likely would change that.
Republican lawmakers want to reactivate 65 defunct emergency call boxes up and down the roadway.
Sen. Betty Little of Queensbury, Assemblyman Chris Ortloff of Plattsburgh, and Assemblywoman Teresa Sayward of Willsboro, made their pitch Wednesday, Oct. 19.
They said they are tired of waiting for a plan for 33 cell towers, approved nearly three years ago by the Adirondack Park Agency, to become reality.
In 2003, the agency authorized the State Police and Department of Transportation to install towers between Exit 26 in Pottersville and Exit 35 in Plattsburgh. But the $10 million to $12 million price tag has stalled the project.
As a result, the legislators want 100-foot mobile cell towers plucked down along the highway.
They don’t have a price estimate for the project, but Ortloff said it would cost as much as $500,000 to reactivate the call boxes. He hopes the entire proposal will go before the park agency before the end of the year.
“Restoring the call boxes and providing emergency cell service are both imperative to keeping this major roadway safe to travel, especially as we near the winter months,” Ortloff said in a written statement.
