I received this email this morning and I am posting it below. I originally was fine with getting rid of the Railroad Avenue Price Chopper, but clearly I didn't consider all the facts. Many of you made well-reasoned arguments as to why we need it and why it should stay, and I now agree and we should do our best to keep it. Here is the email with the author's letter below.
Don't know if you have anywhere to post this, but if you do, it's the opinion of a Saratoga Springs resident who (medically) can't drive. I know the downtown Price Chopper isn't the most beautiful, but even Victorian era William Morris fans know you are advised to keep those things you "know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." In this case, when our other Price Chopper can mean a 2-hour trip as opposed to a 20-minute walk, useful would trump beautiful every time. But there may be a way to achieve both (see below for explanation)
This letter was sent to Mayor Johnson and The Saratogian
RE: Railroad Avenue Price Chopper closing
Among the reasons I cite to friends and family for living in Saratoga is that as a person with a neurological disorder who cannot drive, in Saratoga I can get to everything I need -- groceries, pharmacy and all other essentials and conveniences -- on foot. And that the worst thing that might happen to me (a single female with no local family) carrying a bag of groceries home at night from our sole downtown full-service grocery store, the Railroad Avenue Price Chopper, would be a neighbor pulling up and asking me if I needed a ride home.
Most people who still drive would say "well, take the bus" to our other Price Chopper, which is not within walking distance from where I live.
Have you ever been in the middle of cooking dinner and realized your dinner recipe called for more of an essential ingredient than you thought you had? You hop in the car, grab the needed item and head home to finish making dinner -- likely within 15 minutes.
For me, if there was no Railroad Avenue Price Chopper and I needed to do the same by bus, that missing ingredient might take me more than two hours to get.
Let's say I discover the shopping error at while preparing dinner at 6:25 p.m. Normally I would walk into town (berating myself all the way for my error), purchase my missing ingredient at the Railroad Avenue Price Chopper, and if I really moved along, be home with the item and ready to continue cooking by 7:15 p.m. or so.
If there was no downtown Price Chopper, discovering the same essential missing ingredient at 6:25, I would have to walk almost half way to Railroad Avenue just to catch my nearest CDTA bus to Price Chopper’s Ballston Avenue store. That bus runs hourly where I am, so the next one wouldn't come until 7:20 p.m. -- five minutes AFTER I would have been home from my walk to AND from the Railroad Avenue store.
Once I had picked up that missing item at the Ballston Avenue Price Chopper, I would have to walk out of the plaza (the bus I need does not stop IN the plaza) up the street and across Route 50 -- a busy road at any time of day -- in the dark, then wait in the snow bank (there is no enclosed bus stop across from the Ballston Avenue store) for the next bus, which should come at about 8:30 p.m.
By the time I walked back home from my nearest bus stop and was ready to resume cooking, it would be around 9 p.m. -- two and a half hours for what most people think of as a 15-minute trip. That's what "Well, take the bus!" would really mean to a Saratogian in my position if our Railroad Avenue Price Chopper closes.
That 2+-hour trip could just as easily be for cold medicine for a sick child or adult diapers for an elderly relative -- not things you can ignore until the next day or expect neighbors to have on hand.
I know Golub Corporation does a great deal of positive work for people with handicapping conditions through its charitable contributions. Closing the Railroad Avenue Price Chopper would have an equally negative impact -- on a daily basis -- for a larger segment of the Saratoga population (handicapped, elderly, lower income and otherwise) than is immediately apparent.
If it is essential for Golub to sell the land for Saratoga's "new" urbanization, instead of penalizing the local handicapped, elderly and mostly voiceless non-driving community, why couldn’t the developers be mandated to do what they do in real urban areas and put a new, full-sized grocery store on the ground level of whatever is developed?
Saratoga Springs already has national retailers in ground-floor locations with mixed-use buildings above them in our new Broadway buildings. By mandating a full-service grocery store in the ground floor of whatever development is planned for the Railroad Avenue site, the entire community's interests and the new developers can be served at the same time.
Those who consider the current Railroad Avenue Price Chopper an “eyesore” would have a fresh, clean grocery if the city mandated its inclusion. And those of us who can’t drive and have to pick our supermarkets by proximity and price as opposed to appearance would benefit as well. In this instance, why can’t the “greater good” be served by both the local government and the regional merchants like Price Chopper we support?
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