The Town of Montgomery planning board kicked off the new year with an update to QuickChek’s gas station and convenience store, a project proposed for Scott’s Corner, during its January 8 meeting. Despite previously facing legal action from a local Citgo owner, whose gas station is located in Scott’s Corner, the applicant and developers are eager to continue with the project.

John Furst, the applicant’s attorney, stated that he and his team were preparing a response to a message they received from Citgo’s traffic consultant earlier this month. He also suggested that the project should move forward during the planning board’s next meeting.

“Last week, at the beginning of January, we received another memo from the Citgo gas station owner’s traffic consultant,” Furst said. “Our traffic consultant is currently preparing a response to that. We should have that in the next day or two.”

“We would hope that your traffic consultant would review everything and hopefully come to some conclusions for the next meeting in January,” he continued.

Matthew Rudikoff, Citgo’s consultant and zoning consultant, spoke next and asserted that the planning board should not rely on the New York State DOT for traffic analysis.

“At this early stage of a process, so much weight is being put on the DOT response and the interaction between the applicant and DOT, numerous submissions and that sort of thing,” he said. “They’re commenting on intersection geometry, sight distance, kinds of issues that are technical, location of the drivers. They’re not counting the traffic, they’re not reviewing the proposed, generated traffic.

“There’s a lot of reliance on the DOT and appropriately so, but you really shouldn’t be relying on them on the traffic generation rates because the DOT always leaves those kinds of side issues up to the lead agency,” he continued.

Rudikoff also proposed that QuickChek’s applicant and developers calculate their traffic analysis based on the Institute of Transportation Engineers’ 11th edition manual, not the 10th edition, explaining that the 11th edition provides more accurate results.

The planning board will continue the hearing on Monday, January 29 at 7:30 p.m.