Travel restrictions
Leaf peeping in Vermont? You may want to reconsider those plans./
With the Columbus Day holiday on Monday, and autumn foliage nearing its peak, resorts around the Capital Region are rolling out the red carpet.
In Lake George, steamboat tours are proving popular. Farther north, Revolution Rail is offering excursions on an unused rail line out of North Creek and Gore Mountain is featuring gondola rides.
In the Berkshires, a number of museums, including the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass., and the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., are open, some with timed entry.
But Vermont? You might want to reconsider. Residents from much of the Capital Region, including Albany, Saratoga, Warren, Rensselaer, Columbia and Greene counties, are facing travel restrictions because of the relatively high rate of COVID -19 in those counties.
Visitors staying overnight will need to fill out forms or pass a COVID -19 screening and quarantine before they arrive. Details and a map of counties in the Northeast and their current status may be found at https://accd.vermont.gov/covid-19/restart/cross-state-travel
It has been a tough year so far for the tourism and hospitality markets, with many overseas destinations, as well as Canada, closed to U.S. leisure travelers. Vacationers have largely stayed close to home, with most traveling by car, an easy way to maintain social distance.so places like Lake George are coming off a strong summer, with demand rolling into the fall.
“We have many places that are still no vacancy,” said Gina Mintzer, executive director of the Lake George Regional Chamber of Commerce. “Campgrounds are still busy. Others that would be seasonally closed are staying open until Nov. 1st because they ’re busy.”
People continue to rent boats for a cruise around the lake, others are taking advantage of hiking trails on Pinnacle Mountain in nearby Bolton Landing and Prospect Mountain overlooking the south end of Lake George.
In the Berkshires, fall foliage colors are at peak, said Lindsey Schmid, vice president of tour
normally be off during the workday.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently extended until next March 21 a moratorium on cutting off utilities for people who are badly behind on their bills. Berkley said there are other protections such as utility company policies that allow customers to make installment payments in order to catch up with old unpaid bills.
Still, there are worries. The moratorium could be lifted if the other emergency measures surrounding the pandemic are lifted prior to that.
What may be the larger issue going forward though, is how the state’s highly complex and interconnected utility grid will deal with what could be a long-term or even permanent shift toward working at home, Berkley said.
With that in mind, Berkley ’s group has requested and gotten what he described as a “COVID proceeding ” or detailed look at this trend by the state’s Public Service Commission, which rules on rate increase requests and other matters regarding the power grid.
As it is now, businesses generally pay higher electricity rates than residential customers. But those costs can be offset by economic development and other grants.
But other questions, such as how power companies should allocate and deploy resources, may need a second look in light of the shift.
Should there be more crews, for instance, in suburban or rural areas as people stay in those locales?
“We’re only six months into this historic shift of usage from industrial locations to homes,” Berkley said.
“The whole model for what reliability looks like and what efficient spending looks like is going to be different,” he said.