Point-ed toward state approval

Mayor: Kingston Point Rail Trail undergoing final NYSDOT review

State officials continue their review of the city’s long-awaited plan to turn a 1.5mile stretch of land into a bona fide Kingston Point Rail Trail.

Kingston Mayor Steve Noble, who strongly favors the project, said the state Department of Transportation is conducting a final examination of the plan.

“The NYSDOT is doing their final review to issue a Right-Of-Way clearance certificate,” Noble said in an email. “Once this certificate is signed, the NYSDOT will issue the final design memo to the (state) Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation,

the funder for the project”

Noble said there would be “some final administrative approvals that (that office) will need to do, and then we will be able to bid the project.”

The mayor said the city anticipates those bids will be sought this fall or winter. The project, he added, is set for construction in the spring of 2018.

Noble has said the initial plan was submitted in January

to the state Department of Transportation and that some revisions have been made since.

“The consultants and the city submitted the final design to [the Department of Transportation] for approval earlier this year and received comments back,” Noble said in a previous email. “The documents were then resubmitted, and we are expecting ... approval in the coming

weeks”

With that approval, the mayor said, the “next steps include the finalization of grant contracts with [state] Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation,” after which “the city will put the project out to bid, which we expect would be later this year.”

While some tangible work has been done toward creating the Kingston Point Rail Trail, the pathway remains

incomplete. The creation of the trail, which is to run from Midtown to Kingston Point, was a priority for former Mayor Shayne Gallo, who served from January 2012 to December 2015, and Noble has now picked up the ball.

The city teamed with the Kingston Land Trust to create the walkable, bike-friendly asphalt trail that would be accessible to people using wheelchairs.

Noble is a founder of the Kingston Land Trust and a former environmental educator for the city.

The Kingston Point Rail Trail is to be part of a larger, citywide concept called the Kingston Greenline. That effort aims to provide a backbone for bicycle and pedestrian accessibility throughout the city, as well as a connection to several other rail trails in Ulster County.