Living in Dryden

Cornell t-GEIS event

I went to the Cornell transportation impact project meeting Wednesday night, hoping to get a better idea of what this joint project between Cornell University and the Town of Ithaca might mean for Dryden. (Dryden is participating, but isn't the project lead.) They're creating a transportation generic environmental impact statement (t-GEIS) that will look at transportation, especially traffic shifts, to come over the next ten years, and ways to handle their impact.

I found some rather large surprises in the data amidst the requests for input. Only 21% of Cornell faculty, staff, and graduate students live in the City of Ithaca. 24% live in the Town of Ithaca, 36% in Tompkins County outside of Ithaca, and 19% live outside the county. 13.5% of Cornell commuters appear to be driving past my house on Route 366 every morning and evening.

Cornell travelsheds.

In addition to having people explaining the scope of the project and taking comments, the displays combined explanations of the kinds of things they were looking at with maps and photos for specific areas. There were markers around so you could annotate the maps, which I did on the Varna map:

Varna map, annotated.

I've posted a gallery of photos of the event, and hopefully they're clear enough to read and provide a sense of what they're looking at. The web site for the project includes Frequently Asked Questions as well as a scope document (1802KB PDF with figures 278KB without.

This study could have a huge impact on western Dryden - especially Varna but also Bethel Grove, Ellis Hollow, and Hanshaw Road - so it's definitely worth keeping a close watch.