Status of Northway
"Dark Area" Cell Phone Coverage from Exits 26 to 35
February 2007
In 2001, the Adirondack Council
began working with the New York State Police and Crown Communications,
who wanted to replace the failed Northway emergency roadside
telephones and to install a cell phone/emergency radio network
at the same time. The cell network would cover the same stretch
of highway, from Exits 26 (Pottersville) to 35 (Peru). Most of
this stretch is bounded by Forest Preserve and has few local
services.
After talking with the troopers
and the State Department of Transportation (DOT), the Council
realized that both agencies needed better radio signals in the
area. A succession of deadly accidents involving tour buses and
multiple vehicles (including one at the INS/Border Patrol Checkpoint
in North Hudson) reinforced the point.
| Adirondack
Council staff spent nearly a year meeting regularly with Crown
Communications and the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) to choose
locations that would host 32 to 33 interlinked transmitters.
Each would be mounted on a 38-foot-tall pole. |
Click
to read the Council's Position on Communication Towers in the
Adirondack Park |
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The APA also assigned a staff
member to the project to speed the site-selection process. The
APA Board of Commissioners approved the plan in December 2002.
The plan didn't violate the APA's Towers Policy (which requires
"substantial invisibility") nor did it violate the
scenic easement that protects both sides of the Northway from
visible development.
By the summer of 2003, Crown
was out on the shoulders of the Northway installing test poles.
They were well hidden and blended with the surrounding landscape.
The Adirondack Council documented with photographs that the test
poles were not just "substantially invisible," but
virtually invisible to motorists.
Each pole had a utility box in
the woods next to it, with sufficient room to hold all of the
equipment needed by DOT, the State Police and at least three
separate cell phone companies. Up to this point, the cell companies
still appeared to be solidly in agreement with the plan.
But the cell phone companies
and Crown could not come to an agreement on the division of costs
for the project. The system wasn't built and Crown took down
the test poles.
In 2005, Senator Little, Assemblywoman
Sayward and then-Assemblyman Ortloff proposed the construction
of 100-foot-tall towers at four rest areas and three 75-foot-tall
towers in other areas to cover the same 70-mile stretch of the
Northway. The most optimistic estimate shows that this plan would
cover less than 90 percent of the actual roadway. It would also
require permits from two federal agencies before construction
could begin, since such a project would trigger the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) due to its location on an interstate
highway.
In contrast, the short-pole plan
would provide "seamless and redundant coverage" (quoted
from the permit application) of the Northway corridor, which
includes the entire road, plus the shoulders and immediate vicinity.
It has already received permits from state and federal agencies.
Construction could begin when the ground thaws.
On January 24, 2007, a car carrying
a couple from Brooklyn went off the Northway and into the woods
just south of the North Hudson border patrol checkpoint. Both
passengers were physically unable to get out of the car. The
husband passed away while awaiting help for 32 hours. The wife
was sent to the hospital with a broken back. The couple had a
cell phone with them during the ordeal, but they were unable
to use it since their still-undisclosed provider had no service
in that area. The car was less than a quarter-mile from one of
the recently repaired emergency call boxes, adjacent to the proposed
short-pole cell site for that stretch of the road.
After the latest tragedy, elected
officials (including State Senator Golden from Brooklyn and Senator
Little) renewed their call for tall cell towers along the Northway.
They singled out the APA and "environmentalists" for
trying to limit cell phone communications throughout the Park.
A Verizon representative said that the companies dropped out
of the approved plan that utilized short poles because Crown
Communications and New York State wanted the cell companies to
both install the poles and pay to rent space from the state on
those poles. Crown admits that it indeed wanted to obtain a free
radio upgrade for the State Police and DOT.
Crown reasoned that the cell
companies would be willing to pay for the opportunity to commercially
exploit a public resource in a part of New York where public
lands were otherwise off-limits to them. Crown also obtained
an "expedited" APA review, which APA reserves for government-sponsored
projects, and put up its own money to design the system ($3.5
million). These advantages were not enough. The Adirondack Council
believes that it would be feasible if there were state and/or
federal funding to subsidize the initial equipment costs. If
the state builds and connects the poles for use by the State
Police and DOT, it seems unlikely that the cell companies would
still refuse to attach their equipment to them.
Since the 2002 plan is already
approved by the APA and federal government agencies, the Council
believes it would be the fastest way to solve the Northway cell
coverage problem. In addition to already having a permit, it
would comply with the APA Towers Policy and allow the Statewide
Wireless Network to gain coverage of the roadway without impacting
the scenic resources of the Adirondack Park.
To date, no new plan, either
from DOT, other state agencies, the state police, or private
cellular companies has been submitted to the APA.
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