Clinton Avenue ramp permanently closing
Construction to begin on Skyway park, with hopes to open this year
The Clinton Avenue ramp will close permanently Monday in preparation for the construction of Albany’s elevated Skyway park.
Mayor Kathy Sheehan posted on Facebook that starting at 8 a.m., the ramp from Quay Street will be closed for good. Vehicles will instead continue on Quay Street from Route 9, then take Water and Orange streets before reaching Broadway. When completed, the elevated park on the
Clinton Avenue ramp underneath Interstate 787 will link Quay Street to Broadway and Clinton Avenue at Quackenbush Square.
Construction on the $13 million project will begin soon after the ramp’s closing, Sheehan wrote.
The park, which is scheduled to open by the end of the year, will expand recreational opportunities and provide a safe way for pedestrians and cyclists to reach the Corning Preserve and the Mohawk-hudson Bike-hike Trail. The half-mile park will also be fully accessible and Adacompliant. Where it merges with the much busier Clinton Avenue ramp, barriers will separate vehicles from pedestrians and cyclists.
City officials also envision it as a space for public art, entertainment, small pop-up restaurants, food trucks and more. It is viewed as part of the city’s larger efforts to revitalize Clinton Square.
Sheehan has said the Skyway will be one of the most transformational projects the city had seen in decades.
“The Albany Skyway will provide one of the most historically underserved census tracts in our region with a revitalized park, new economic opportunities, and a welcoming gateway between the Hudson River waterfront,
Clinton Square, Arbor Hill, and Sheridan Hollow,” she said in a statement. Supporters hope the project will act much like New York City’s High Line Park, a linear park built on an abandoned freight viaduct in lower Manhattan, and
do the same as it did for the neighborhoods alongside it.
The project is financed by a $5 million federal grant that requires $1.2 million from the city, $1.9 million from city downtown revitalization funds that came as a state grant awarded in 2018, and a $3.1 million state Department of Transportation award.