Summer is approaching and with it the hundreds of children who will be attending Camp Cory, just south of Penn Yan. Though we strive to make our summers full of fun activities, our other main concern is the safety of our children. Route 54, where the speed limit is 55 miles per hour, races right past our camp, which could be exceedingly dangerous, for the following reasons:
• We run a day camp for nine weeks, with around 40 local children being dropped off and picked up every weekday,
• Parents of overnight campers pick up ad drop off around 200 campers every Saturday and Sunday,
• We have a Golf Program, in which the camper-participants walk across Route 54, with a counselor, to Lakeside Country Club,
• We transport children to and from the camp on a semi-daily basis - our vans pull out into the traffic on Route 54,
• The Rochester YMCA transports children to and from our camp several times a week,
• We sometimes have troubled campers who try to run away from camp, into or beside the road,
• Staff and older campers jog on the road in the mornings,
• Teenaged staff members pull into and out of the camp entrance on a nightly basis,
• Staff often walk north into Penn Yan on their time off, and
• We have groups renting out the facility throughout the winter, and their children could run out into the road at any time.
Due to the added Day Camp, and due to the fact that we now maintain the facility for year-round use, it is entirely feasible that there are children at Camp Cory on any given day of the year.
Therefore, I urge the Department of Transportation to consider a study of the speed limit, and to lower the speed limit for the safety of our campers.
Bo Shoemaker
Sr. Program Director, Camp Cory
