NEW SCOTLAND — This summer, fourteen years after publishing a study on the dangerous intersection, the New York State Department of Transportation put larger stop signs at Route 301, Cedar Grove Road, where it crosses Route 32, Indian Fields Road.

The study, which has sat unused for the past 14 years, “is not something we’re considering at this time,” according to Bryan Viggiani, spokesman for the DOT.

While accidents continue to occur at the intersection, in which travelers on Route 301 are supposed to stop for traffic on Route 32, the DOT has, until this summer, been sitting on its hands.

This April, David Raylinsky Jr. and his father, David Raylinsky Sr., came to the New Scotland Town Board, asking it to write a letter to the DOT urging the state agency to take action on the dangerous intersection, where accidents have been piling up for decades.

“It’s a death trap,” Raylinsky Jr., who lives on Tarrytown Road and has a farm there, said at the meeting.

Three months later, the town sent a three-paragraph letter to Mark Kennedy, the DOT’s regional transportation system operations engineer for the Capital Region.

The town also sent Kennedy copies of two pages from the February 2000 design study, showing a proposed flashing signal at the intersection.

Kennedy would not speak with The Enterprise.

Nineteen days after the letter was sent, two cars crashed into each other at Meads Corners. All four occupants were taken to Albany Medical Center.

According to the 2000 study, “The Regional Traffic Engineering & Safety Group has recommended improved traffic control devices at the Route 32/C.R. 301 intersection,” and “the existing highway alignment is a major contributor to accidents.”

Despite its recognition of a clear need for improvements at the intersection, the DOT did not move ahead with the project, citing lack of funding.

“Funding decisions aren’t made in a vacuum,” Viggiani said. “It’s a collaborative decision-making process” among multiple agencies.

He described part of the process as finding a way to improve the value of the infrastructure while using the least amount of funds.

When asked how much a traffic signal or new speed limit signs would cost, Viggiani could not provide an answer.

He had no idea how much the new stop signs, installed in July, cost either, and said they could have been something that the DOT “just had laying around.”

Raylinsky Jr. has been working with the town as well as the DOT to get the agency to fix the intersection to stop accidents from happening.

On Labor Day of 2013, his wife was hit by a car that ran the stop sign. She was pregnant at the time, and had their 18-month old child as a passenger in the car. Fortunately, nobody was injured.

“It’s just been getting worse and worse,” he said of the intersection.

In addition to regular traffic, the intersection also accommodates agricultural traffic, as at least four farms are in the area, Raylinsky Jr. told The Enterprise.

He described a possible scenario where a tractor, weighing up to 15,000 pounds, is crossing the intersection, and someone runs a stop sign, or is speeding, and doesn’t see it in time.

“It’s brutal,” he said.

He also said that he and his neighbors are now taking different routes home to avoid the intersection, which has been the scene of at least four accidents since April, he said.

While he acknowledges the alignment of the road is an issue, he thinks a simpler, and less expensive, solution would fix the problem.

“Don’t rip the road up,” he said, “just drop the speed limit.”

While there is currently no plan for the DOT to do either, it is currently collecting data on accidents at Meads Corners from over the past few years and looking to see if the accident rates have changed since the installation of new stop signs with reflective strips on their posts, as well as “stop ahead” signs.

The department is gathering reports of accidents at the intersection for an “ongoing evaluation,” Viggiani said.

According to accident data collected by the DOT between Jan. 1, 2010 and Feb. 28, 2014, four accidents occurred at the intersection of Cedar Grove Road/Tarrytown Road and Indians Fields Road during that time.

All four accidents occurred on dry roads in daylight, and all four led to injury.

Jeff Mudge, who has been with the Onesquethaw Volunteer Fire Department for nearly 40 years, said that Meads Corners is “absolutely” a dangerous intersection.

Mudge, who is currently a battalion chief, thinks “a flashing light would help,” but doubts that the DOT would install one due to cost.

“There’s been a lot [of accidents] over the years,” he said.