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This Saturday April 30th, The City of Kingston will experience the third annual Clean Sweep throughout the central part of the city. One of the chosen focus areas this year is the abandoned trolley tracks behind the Rondout Bank on Broadway.
My reason for highlighting this task on the Blog is to give those of us who will participate in the clean-up a quick look at just how much work is ahead of us this Saturday. Clear bags will help distinguish the recyclables from the trash.
For decades, people living on either side of the old railbed, have thrown their household trash and yard waste down in the channel. This of course puzzles all of us because the City collects trash, recycling and yard waste at the curb weekly.
In years past, tire companies had thrown truck loads of old tires by the tunnel opening. With help from friends, I have been dragging up piles and taking them to the City Transfer Station. There are still about 50 left.
The fence post below, is one of 10 that came from the back yard of a neighboring property. It had just been thrown on the tracks before I wandered down last fall. The holes were still visible in the yard. The owner said he had no idea where they came from. He was still holding the shovel.
The owner of this tree below, told me she didn't know where the tree came from. She was standing on the trunk when she said this.
This massive pile of brush below, wasn't hear last year. I had actually gotten this far up from the tunnel collecting recyclables around November so there has been property clean up this spring. Can someone tell me how a neighbor just arbitrarily throws this down here knowing the City Sweep is heading this way?
This last shot is the other end of the tunnel. The tracks head west at an incline from here so the drain to the lower left needs constant attention. The piles of debris through the whole railbed have made it a soggy mess so be prepared for tough, wet and smelly work Saturday morning. Meet-up is 9am at the bank parking lot.
So it looks like we made a mistake last week when we altered the resolution regarding the Rail Trail. The latest skuttle is about whether we, as a legislative body, are entitled to create a committee to micro-manage the construction of the trail along Rt 209.
As I get familiarized with the saga pertaining to old rail beds and the hiking groups that want to utilize them, I find that this has been a never ending process that has out lived some of the proponents. There are some folks who want to pull out all the rails and scream at the thought of ever sharing the beds with trains. Then there are others who wont give up on the dream of one day riding from Kingston to Roxbury. I would fall into the latter group.
This rail bed in question holds neither of those arguments because this one is but a faint memory of it's early history. It serves as a path from Kingston to Hurley. The fight today is not about the $140K that is to be used for the design, but about who gets to chose the committee members responsible for the planning. The $140K just for planning.
The push to get the trail open along the rail bed is to increase the availability of health walking space in areas of the county. The County Exec and the Legislature both want additional opportunities to exercise and letting proponents of walking trails do the "leg work" makes sense.
Mike Hein was quoted: “I am in complete agreement with the core intent of this legislation, to be able to support the construction of a connection rail trail that is important to the trail system and is consistent with our desire to make Ulster County the healthiest county in New York state.”
As much as all of us are willing to work toward a solution to this administrative mess, we also acknowledge that there are still areas within the new charter that require review. Had this been looked at a bit closer before voting on the measure, I'm sure we would have come to a more unified conclusion. Speaking only for myself, I didn't see a problem with Rob Parete's amendment, turns out there was an issue, but then that's what our legal council was supposed to pick up. I miss Dan.
Maybe the rail Trail advocates would like to help me clean out the Rail tunnel under Delaware Avenue right here in Kingston?
