Champlain Canalway Trail becoming reality
HALFMOON, N.Y. » A working meeting Friday of the municipal officials and volunteers who are the driving forces behind the completion of the Champlain Canalway Trail proved there is growing enthusiasm to get the project completed.
The annual meeting of the working group was held June 1 in Halfmoon’s Lighthouse Park on Hudson River Road. The shaded park is within walking distance of the town’s section of the Canalway Trail and is on the banks of the Hudson River. The date for the meeting was chosen specifically. It was one day before National Trails Day.
The working group was ostensibly scheduled to hear from officials in those municipalities in Saratoga County that are part of the Canalway. However, volunteers from beyond those bound-
aries, like Dave Perkins, a longtime Canalway volunteer from Washington County, made remarks too.
The annual gathering of municipal officials allows them a chance to discuss with their counterparts the progress they and their communities have made in the last year on their respective sections of the 62mile long trail.
The vision of the Canalway is to give those seeking recreation, whether it be in summer or winter, a chance to go from the Town of Waterford in the south up to Whitehall in the north with limited time on public roadways
To open the meeting and as one of its co-hosts, Halfmoon Supervisor Kevin Tollisen discussed the town’s efforts and progress on completing its section of the trail. Tollisen he expects the town will have a complete trail connection from Waterford to Mechanicville by 2020.
The idea of a trail connecting the communities is not new. Stillwater Supervisor Ed Kinowski noted the irony in his remarks Friday.
“We’re serious about trails in Stillwater,” he said. “But we’re not building a trail. It’s been in existence since the 1700s. We’re just renaming it. This is where Indians and soldiers used to walk. It just happens to be on the Champlain Canal.”
Saratoga PLAN executive director, Maria Trabka, was thrilled to hear the reports of the Canalway’s progress.
“It’s exciting to see the connection between all the stops along the river and canals as well as the green trail,” she said. “We’re getting a really nice complimentary system going here. People can come up on their boats, dock, stretch their legs and take a walk on the trail. I think we’re going to have a really nice system for people to use in the future.”
Town of Waterford Supervisor Jack Lawler described his town’s efforts to compete its sections and spoke of the wide impact the trail will have.
“This has been a multiyear effort to build this trail out,” he said. “The southern end of the trail terminates at the Mohawk River, which is the dividing line between Saratoga and Albany counties, so what we have is a trail that will run from the very edge of the Mohawk River and will now be going up well north up into Washington County.”
Lawler said the trail goes from the shores of the Mohawk to the northern most part of the town, through the village of Waterford, and up along Route 4 and 32. There the municipalities of Waterford and Halfmoon are working together to connect a small portion of the trail with those sections that Halfmoon has built out. In a short period of time the Town of Halfmoon will soon reach the city limits of Mechanicville.
“We in Town of Waterford are 95 percent built out,” Lawler said. “I’ve been using these trails with people from our community and from others. We think it’s a wonderful opportunity to showcase not only Waterford but the beautiful things the river communities have to offer and to provide a real asset to our people.
Dave Perkins, chairman of the Canalway Trail for Washington County, discussed the work in his county and the help it has received from the Empire State Trails program with its sections of the trail.
“We had two water crossing and a road crossing to deal with and they helped us with all three,” Perkins said. “There was a tremendous amount of movement in a short period of time. They made a big impact. They came in and took care of a lot of problems. By 2020 we’ll have a trail done to Ft. Ann.”
The Empire State Trails program was created in 2017 by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The vision behind the program was to connect 750 miles of the state’s offroad and on-road trails by 2020.
Once complete one could conceivably start walking or biking north from the lower part of Manhattan and head north to Albany. There, the hiker or biker could choose between going on to Buffalo or on to Montreal.
“The survivability of passive recreation, outdoor recreation, is something that I feel was ignored here a little too long,” Lawler said. “Now it has become a focus and we in Waterford are proud to be part of that focus. When complete this will be a great thing for our county and for neighboring counties as well.”