Dutchess should join Walkway to Rail Trail

Alongside the introduction of airplanes, hot air balloons, electricity that transverses nations, and other great connectors of communities, the spanning of the longest bridge in the world suited the turn of the century wonderfully. This bridge over the Hudson was once frequently crossed by trains pulling hundreds of cars of freight. However, once another more convenient bridge opened further down the river and after a fire destroyed a section of the old bridge, the older bridge was abandoned. Over the past 20 years, Fred Schaeffer, a bike enthusiast and attorney, rallied enough support to renovate this historical landmark into the longest pedestrian bridge in the world. This bridge reopened this past fall as Walkway Over the Hudson with Schaeffer as its president.

Over 600,000 people have visited the bridge and all expectations for the bridge have been exceeded. Reasonable expectations now should be satisfied: Dutchess County ought to connect the Walkway Over the Hudson with the Dutchess Rail Trail (DRT).

By capitalizing on a 1.6–mile stretch of railroad that shoots off from the Walkway to DRT, many more flocks of people will be able to access the bridge. First, the connection will help provide more parking for the Walkway. Street parking and the small parking lot on the Poughkeepsie side of the bridge cannot hold the thousands of vehicles that the thousands of Walkway visitors bring. Most of the street parking requires a permit since the Walkway touches ground in a residential area. With an extension of the Walkway to the DRT there will be many more access points at which visitors can park and access the attraction.
Second, connecting the DRT with the Walkway will allow thousands of bikers to flow through to the Walkway. To travel to the Walkway from DRT, bikers have to meander through heavily-trafficked streets with high-speed traffic. The danger of biking on these roads deters what would be a large number of bikers from venturing to the Walkway.

Dutchess County originally focused on connecting the Walkway with DRT, but a minor set-back discouraged the county from pursuing the connection further. However, the county has treated a bump in the road as a roadblock. Dutchess County can easily overcome obstacles to paving the connection with persevered concentration and effort.
After talks with CSX Transportation Corporation, the company that owns the land on which the connection would be paved, Dutchess County relegated their attention to the connection. CSX listed a sale price for the land much higher than what Dutchess County estimated the land was worth—even though CSX does not use the land, nor will it be able to find a use that outweighs the cost of foregoing selling the land—so Dutchess County refused to make the purchase. Dutchess County needs to continue to negotiate and push the price of the land down, and CSX needs to realize that selling their land at a reasonable rate for a connection between the Walkway and DRT would benefit them and thousands of people.

In response, Dutchess County has been focusing on paving a bike trail from Morgan Lake by Dutchess Community College to Hopewell Junction in rural southeastern Dutchess County. The connection between the Walkway and DRT would feel the footsteps and bike wheels of thousands more people than the path extension past Hopewell Junction. Plus, many fewer people, particularly those coming from the other side of the river, will utilize the far-reaches of the DRT without a connection between the Walkway and DRT. Thus, it seems imprudent to spend money on the rural extension of the DRT rather than on securing a connection between the Walkway and DRT.

Dutchess County should follow the example of the Town of Lloyd, a town immediately off of the Walkway on the other side of the Hudson. Lloyd is working to connect the Walkway with their trail system by October 2010. With their combined trail systems, Lloyd and Poughkeepsie will create a bike system that will attract even more tourism that both towns and their counties will certainly economically benefit from to a great extent. As long as Dutchess County continues to pursue the strip of land through talks with CSX and the community (including Vassar) stays active in supporting the connection, the Walkway, as it has always desired, will sooner than later be able to kiss the Dutchess Rail Trail.

-Ezra Roth '10 is an intern for President of Walkway Over the Hudson Fred Schaeffer.