Thursday December 12, 2002

By MICHAEL GORMLEY Associated Press Writer

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) The state plans to begin restoring reliable emergency phone service to a scenic but desolate stretch of interstate highway through the Adirondack Park as early as this winter.

The roughly 70-mile stretch of Interstate 87, the Adirondack Northway, has been without roadside emergency phone service since April, a remnant of Y2K computer glitches.

The proposal that will also improve private wireless service in the region was approved Thursday without opposition in committee, which included all members of the Adirondack Park Agency board of commissioners, said agency spokeswoman Victoria Hristovski. The full board is scheduled to vote Friday in Ray Brook on the measure already endorsed by the staff.

The $16 million project will be paid for by Crown Communications, a wireless phone service, and won't require any state funds, according to state police.

``Everybody pretty much concurred it's a good project and a necessary project for the Adirondacks,'' Hristovski said.

The old emergency radio-relay boxes along the state's Adirondack Northway have proved to be one of the few and lingering effects of the Y2K scare. They have failed to work reliably since midnight Dec. 31, 1999, when many older computer systems were expected to fail because internal clocks weren't prepared to handle the year 2000. Hristovski said none have worked since April.

State police have temporarily beefed up patrols to compensate for the loss of service, said William Callahan, administrative officer for the state police. Weather permitting, the first wireless areas will be operating this winter and the remainder should be online in the summer.

The yellow-and-blue boxes between Exit 26 near Schroon Lake and Exit 34 south of Plattsburgh had handled about 100 a calls a month in recent years. The new system will provide a direct line to state police from 32 call boxes on either side of the highway every two miles.

The proposal calls for 33 towers or poles under 39 feet high that will be painted with dark colors using nonreflective paint. They will be located, when possible, among trees to reduce their visual impact on a highway that has been designated one of America's most scenic highways. The poles are designed so that if one pole goes off line the poles on both sides will cover the territory.

``It will mean safer travel along the Northway,'' said John Sheehan of the Adirondack Council, which lobbied for the reduced number of towers in the proposal. The original proposal had called for 66 structures.

``I think they've done a good job of scaling this to a more reasonable size,'' he said. ``It's not as much of an intrusion.''

http://cbsnewyork.com/nynews/NY--NorthwayPhones-on/resources_news_html

CBS

-- Anonymous, December 13, 2002