EDA gives final approval for traffic study in Medina on Maple Ridge near Business Park

MEDINA – The Orleans Economic Development Agency on Friday approved spending $13,500 for a traffic study in the area near the Medina Business Park.

LaBella Associates will do the study. The company will reach out the state Department of Transportation for traffic counts and other input.

LaBella will be asked to determine if turning lanes, stop signs or traffic devices are needed, as well as possibly widening roads and looking at potential traffic flow at the Keppler site, which has about 125 acres south of Maple Ridge Road near Waterworks Road.

The EDA has pressed the DOT in the recent past for a left turning lane on Maple Ridge at the Bates Road intersection, but that hasn’t been approved.

The area will see more traffic with an expansion by Western New York Energy and the soon-to-open Cobblestone Suites hotel with 58 rooms on Maple Ridge. BOMET Recovery also has purchased 10 acres of land from the EDA for a new 37,000-square foot facility at 100 Marcia Tuohey Way, the northside of the road facing Bates Road.

The EDA also is promoting about 300 vacant acres of certified shovel-ready land at the business park.

The EDA expects those acres will have businesses with several hundred employees and many truck deliveries in the future.

The traffic study will look at the current situation and projections for the future, and what will be needed to ease traffic flow and make it safer.

County Legislator John DeFilipps, a member of the EDA board, said the study should be able to help the EDA and local governments with funding for some of the possible improvements to help accommodate the traffic.