The New York Department of Transportation pushed back the start of a $25 million project to upgrade Woodstock’s Tinker Street by a year, to 2028, saying it needs more time for “additional necessary preliminary engineering,” according to Woodstock’s Complete Street Committee.
The DOT sent a revised timeline, which also delays completion to 2031 from 2030, in an email on Tuesday, said committee Chair Grace Murphy and member Howard Cohen. “Everything is pushed back considerably,” Murphy said in an interview.
The committee isn’t clear what the additional engineering would entail, she said. The DOT didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“All these dates remain subject to change,” Woodstock Supervisor Anula Courtis said at a Town Board meeting on Tuesday. This is still a very aggressive schedule, according to the DOT,”
Many factors remain to be considered, including flood mitigation flagged by the Flood Advisory Committee to the DOT last month.
“This timeline pushout might actually help us get more of those things that we really want to be a resilient community,” Courtis said.
The project, spanning the stretch from Rock City Road to Schoonmaker Lane, would replace four bridges, create wider sidewalks, add new crosswalks and extend curbs to calm traffic.
Other changes requested by the town, including raised sidewalks, narrowed lanes and reducing the speed limit to 25 miles per hour from 30, haven’t been incorporated into the DOT’s current plans for the project.
The final design is now due in December 2027, six months later than its earlier deadline of July 2027. The DOT plans to solicit construction bids beginning in April of 2028. It also plans to clear 22 trees starting in November 2028, and replace them with 28, instead of the spring of 2028, Murphy said.
The project’s second phase, to replace sidewalks on the south side of Tinker Street, is now expected to start in the spring of 2029. Work on the north side will start a year later.
The final stage, replanting the trees, will now start in the spring of 2031, a year later than it was earlier expected to start.
Courtis said her office will begin providing monthly updates about the project via a dedicated town page beginning in 2027, during the yearlong preliminary design phase.
A second construction project, between Schoonmaker Lane and Wittenberg Road, is also being designed. Funds haven’t yet been allocated for it.
This is a developing story.
Isabella Schoonover is a staff reporter for The Overlook covering Woodstock, Saugerties, Hurley, and surrounding Ulster County communities. Send correspondence to isabella@theoverlooknews.com.
