MAHOPAC – Villa Barone Hilltop Manor on Route 6 in Mahopac is one of the Hudson Valley’s most popular event venues, hosting hundreds of guests for weddings, fire department installation dinners, and other community gatherings.
With parking located on the south side of Route 6, attendees often cross the heavily traveled road resulting in a hazardous condition.
Carmel Supervisor Mike Cazzari and former Supervisor Kenneth Schmitt contacted State Senator Peter Harckham for help from Albany in addressing the dangerous situation.
The senator secured a $47,000 state grant resulting in the installation of pedestrian crossing safety beacons that have been installed in the vicinity of the venue. The six new Rectangular Rapid Flash Beacons at the crosswalk employ user-actuated amber LEDs to aggressively flash and alert approaching motorists to yield to pedestrians.
During an unveiling Harckham called the safety measure a “testament to what we can achieve for the safety of our residents when people work together. Knowing that pedestrians were often taking risks when walking from a parking lot to the entrance of Villa Barone across a busy roadway, we worked in tandem to help solve this problem without impacting the local taxpayers.”
In recent years, the part of Route 6 in the vicinity of Villa Barone has been the scene of a number of accidents involving pedestrians, including one in which a sheriff’s deputy was struck by a vehicle and seriously injured.
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