Pittsford’s Active Transportation Plan Moves Along

Nov 3, 2020 Update : The Village Planning Board completed its Local Waterfront Revitalization Program (LWRP) consistency review of the Active Transportation Plan via public hearing on Monday, November 2. The Village Board of Trustees incorporated much of the suggestions and input provided by the Planning Board’s thorough and thoughtful review process, and those changes are now reflected in the 2020 Supplement. If you are interested in seeing both the Planning Board’s feedback and the Board of Trustee responses, they are on the Village website: 1.) LWRP consistency considerations & 2.) overall plan considerations . The next step is a joint public hearing with the Town & Village to adopt the Active Transportation Plan. That hearing will be held at 7 PM on December 2, 2020 via Zoom. Click here for the meeting link.

The Village Board of Trustees referred the Active Transportation Plan and 2020 Supplement to the Village Planning Board this week, kicking off the first step in the review process for the plan.

You’ve heard about the Pittsford Active Transportation Plan for a while. Many of you participated in the public input sessions and survey for the plan, recent Town and Village candidate forums mentioned it, and both the Town and Village 2019 Comprehensive Plan updates reference it. The Town and Village hoped to engage in the approval process in the spring, but the pandemic pressed the pause button for a bit.

What is it?

The Active Transportation Plan is a joint project of the Town of Pittsford and Village of Pittsford focused on improving pedestrian and bike infrastructure. It provides an assessment of current conditions and guidance on projects and policies to improve pedestrian and bike infrastructure, connections between destinations, and traffic calming and other measures that provide safe access for all users of our trails and streets. “Active transportation” refers to human-powered mobility. It also incorporates public transit, since it is intrinsically linked to pedestrian and bike infrastructure.

Much like a Comprehensive Plan, it sets forth a vision for the community. It provides recommendations for how to improve trouble-spots, identifies missing gaps in our network and outlines concepts to create a safer community for everyone who uses our streets and trails. The Town and Village will refer to this document when reviewing new projects and road resurfacing/reconstruction, seeking grant funding, advocating for traffic enforcement and calming, updating zoning code, implementing traffic calming measures, and creating new policies, advocacy efforts and laws. It’s like the pedestrian & bike bible for our community; it’s a foundation to help guide us to better, more accessible, safer infrastructure and place-making.

Background:

The Active Transportation Plan was initiated by the Town of Pittsford in 2015 after receiving a grant from the Genesee Transportation Council. The Town also provided additional funding to cover the cost of the work. The process included four public input sessions, a detailed public survey, many steering committee and subcommittee meetings, a bus and walking audit tour of both the Town and Village, an inventory and study of existing and planned conditions, and a thorough needs assessment. Data collection and study concluded in 2017, with an initial draft plan provided that year. An updated draft was provided in 2018 and a final plan was provided by the consultant team in January 2019.

Since the scope of work was completed, both the Town of Pittsford and Village of Pittsford have adopted new Comprehensive Plans. In addition, the Village adopted a new Zoning Code. The Town of Pittsford is also now beginning an update of its Zoning Code. The 2020 Supplement is provided to address these current updates, as well as additional corrections of the final January 2019 plan.

What’s an LWRP Review?

The Local Waterfront Revitalization Program (LWRP) law sets a vision for the areas around the Erie Canal and requires that any project or plan that falls within those areas go before the Planning Board to assure they are consistent with the vision. So in this important step in the approval process, the Village Planning Board will review recommendations of the ATP that fall within the Village Local Waterfront Overlay District. [See the blue dotted section below on the zoning map.]

What Happens After That?

Once the LWRP Consistency Review is complete, the Town and Village will move to formally adopt the plan via a public hearing. (For those of you super interested in the process, the Active Transportation Plan must also undergo SEQR. You can read about that here. We didn’t want to get super in the weeds about process, while still keeping you updated that the plan is moving along. Feel free to reach out to us, if you’d like to know more specific details about the review requirements and process.)

We will keep you posted with any further developments and when the public hearings for LWRP review and to adopt the plan have been scheduled! All meetings (including the Planning Board’s working sessions) are open to the public and right now are still being held via video-conference.

Read the Pittsford Active Transportation Plan & 2020 Supplement here.