Editorial: Albany bike trail on track: Get it built

It’s been 13 years since a bike-hike trail was first proposed along an abandoned rail line between the city of Albany and Voorheesville, but it looks like it may finally become a reality. If so, residents of Albany County, and the greater Capital Region, would benefit in many ways.

For awhile there were actually competing proposals for this set of tracks: a bike-hike trail, and a tourist train like the ones that now run along the Battenkill in Washington County and along the Hudson between North Creek and Riparius in the Adirondacks. This newspaper actually favored the rail line because it was different, and this part of Albany County is especially scenic (the original proposal called for the train to run 24 miles from Albany through Voorheesville to the historic villages of Altamont and Delanson). But we also liked the idea of the bike-hike trail — and when CP Rail in 2003 decided to abandon only nine miles of track, rather than 24, we switched our support to that project.

If a bike-hike trail was a good idea then, it is even better now, when high gas prices, environmental and health concerns have more people looking seriously at the bicycle as a means of recreation and transportation. Once built, it could be used by kids and adults living in Delmar, Bethlehem and New Scotland. They could even take it all the way into Albany. It could also give Voorheesville an economic boost by attracting cyclists from the city of Albany and elsewhere around the Capital Region.

Funding is an issue for the financially pinched county. But it just received grants of $700,000 ($350,00 each from the state and Scenic Hudson, a nonprofit environmental organization) to purchase the old rail line. Building and paving the path would probably cost around $3 million, but a variety of federal and state funds are available for such projects, according to the national Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, as well as private grants and partnerships. Building a new road of that distance would cost many times as much, and encourage new housing and shopping that eats up open space. A bike trail here would preserve a very scenic area and prevent such sprawl.

And it wouldn’t all be costs, either. Bike trails also bring in money, with users spending at stores and restaurants, bike shops and bike rental places along the way. This one could attract not only local residents but tourists. It shouldn’t take another 13 years to build.