A bump in the road to opening another section of the Albany County Rail Trail has been cleared after New Scotland bridged a financial gap.
The New Scotland Town Board on Wednesday, Sept. 11, approved donating $4,500 to the Friends of the Rail Trail to complete bridge renovations to open up a section of the Rail Trail from Upper Font Grove Road to the Route 155 bridge. The county would not allow trail work to continue on this portion until necessary improvements were made to the Vly Creek bridge and Route 155 bridge.
Town Highway Superintendent Ken Guyer said this portion of the trail was only open to volunteers helping clear the trail, but that hasn’t stopped people from using it.
“It does got a lot of use,” Guyer said. “It sees a lot of walkers.”
Town Supervisor Tom Dolin said the funds could be drawn from the parkland set-aside fund. Developers building in the town pay into the account, which is reserved for park improvements.
“This thing is not going to get open unless we help, and for this amount of money, if it will get it open, I think we should do it,” Dolin said. “It doesn’t trouble me to help out getting the bridges fixed, because mostly people from this town will use those bridges.”
Dolin said the town “hardly uses” the set-aside funds.
In June 2012, the Mohawk-Hudson Land Conservancy reached an agreement with the town, Village of Voorheesville and Albany County to open a 2.4-mile section of the county’s Helderberg Hudson Rail Trail. In the summer of 2011, a 1.8-mile trail section was opened in Bethlehem through volunteer work and donated funds.
Friends of the Rail Trail member Scott Lewendon said “rather simple” improvements are needed at the Vly Creek bridge, including installation of a wood deck and railing system. Volunteers would complete this construction.
The improvements needed at the Route 155 bridge are more complex, such as installation of an 8-foot-tall pedestrian safety fence on each side of the bridge to meet Department of Transportation standards. An outside contract is needed to complete the estimated $13,000 worth of renovations.
In April, request for proposals was sent out for the work, but there were no responses, Lewendon said. He asked some potential bidders what happened and heard there wasn’t enough work for a fencing contractor to make a profit from the job.
By speaking with Jack’s Constructing in Selkirk, Lewendon found there to be significant costs in traffic control and insurance. Just setting up safety netting required at the job site would also be more expensive than the fencing itself.
After meeting with county officials about the predicament, Jack’s agreed to handle traffic control for no cost to the group. A “minor” design change was also made to the fencing. This resulted in a $17,000 estimate.
“That is their best price, but we were still short of money,” Lewendon said.
The Voorheesville Community and School Foundation contributed $10,000 and the Mohawk-Hudson Land Conservancy compiled its restricted funds and donations for $7,076.
The cost to complete the project includes an engineering fee of $1,000, the construction contractor bid at $17,000 and the materials for the Vly Creek bridge totaling $3,515. The $21,515 project was at a shortfall of $4,500.
“We are crying humble and we are coming to you … if you would consider donating $4,500 to partner with all the rest of the organizations,” Lewendon said.
“We are trying at this point to rev things up on the New Scotland section,” said Mark King, director of the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy, said. “We are hoping to have an event this fall and we are hoping the town might participate that event to draw attention to kind of keep the county motivated to keep working on this and motivate local folks to help us out getting this thing opened.”
King said years ago, he believed this portion of the trail would have already been opened.
“I started working on this project 20 years ago and I thought pretty sure by now we would have a trail,” King said, “but I guess I underestimated.”