‘Heart’ of trail to lie north of Breakneck
Officials from the Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail on April 3 expressed a willingness to limit access to its planned Cold Spring-to-Beacon connector if visitors overwhelm it and threaten the environment or local communities.
In a two-hour program, staff and consultants for HHFT, a subsidiary of the Poughkeepsie-based environmental group Scenic Hudson, outlined potential ways to reduce the impacts of the planned 7.5-mile linear park paralleling the Hudson River, Metro-North train tracks and Route 9D, a state highway.
They said the path’s “heart” and focus would lie between Breakneck Ridge and Dutchess Manor, at the southern tip of the Town of Fishkill, although plans call for a trail to begin in Cold Spring.
The discussion, held at Dutchess Manor, centered on “visitation management,” which John Moss, a consultant from ORCA (Operation Research Consulting Associates), said entails “balancing supply and demand. We don’t want attendance to ever outpace the ability of the park or trail to support it.”
He added that “we recognize that it may be necessary, in a worst-case environment, to control entries into your trailhead, into your parking lot, to manage demand.”
Moss said he came to Cold Spring for firsthand research on busy weekends in 2023 and saw the crowds exiting Metro-North trains, the overflowing sidewalk trash cans, the long lines at the public restrooms on Main Street near the train tracks, and the traffic. “I completely understand what we’ve been up against,” he said.
Along with the other HHFT representatives, Moss suggested strategies to alleviate problems, such as signs to guide visitors; bathrooms at Dockside Park, Little Stony Point and the Breakneck and Notch trailheads; a visitor center at Dutchess Manor; 600 parking spots (including 235 new spaces); and a trailhead shuttle.
“No Fjord Trail parking is intended in Cold Spring” and more parking between Cold Spring and Beacon will ensure that “it’s not one big, aggregate mall parking lot in the middle of the trail corridor,” Moss said. He said HHFT will manage and maintain the restrooms, shuttle operations, parking lots and other trail facilities.
Al Shacklett, also with ORCA, said that, even without the Fjord Trail, heavy tourism is expected to continue and “conditions you see today are going to get worse” outside the Cold Spring restrooms. At present, about a third of village visitors are hikers, Shacklett said. He said that, in recent years, interest in Breakneck Ridge has appeared to drop while increasing at the Washburn trail, opposite Little Stony Point, just outside the village limit.
With the Fjord Trail, he said, hikers will be steered toward picking up the trail at Breakneck, where the train stop is being upgraded. With those changes in place, Shacklett estimated that 50 percent of the hikers who now take the train to Cold Spring will instead continue to Breakneck. In that case, “we still have a surge, but the surge is much mitigated by the shift” from one station to another, he said.
Shortly after the meeting, members of a Visitation Data Committee established to help HHFT with analysis issued a statement that outlined its concerns with recent Fjord Trail materials, including a claim that visitation to Hudson Highlands State Park Preserve had increased by 7.6 percent between 2016 and 2023, although, the committee members said, the state parks department reported a 10.7 percent increase.
The five committee members, who include Nelsonville Mayor Chris Winward, argued that HHFT and its consultants had inadequately considered the effects of social media and marketing on visitation and the Highlands’ proximity to population centers. “We hope that HHFT will revise their research” so that future reports can be “more reliable,” the committee said.
Responding on Monday (April 8), Amy Kacala, HHFT’s executive director, called the committee’s reaction “premature” because its “discussion and review of the visitation projection has yet to be completed and review of the traffic study has not even begun.” She said HHFT created the panel “to foster more robust communication” in preparation for a public comment period on a pending environmental review, which may be ready in June.
Plus que change. This still sounds like all that Cold Spring gets from the plan is a lot more tourists and their quotient of toilets and garbage containers embellishing Dockside Park and elsewhere in the historic district. If we didn’t have to anticipate exponentially increased tourist loads, we wouldn’t need all those toilets.
Exactly how does HHFT intend to “limit access” (to state roads, Village of Cold Spring) while at the same time virally promoting their unbridled visitation plan? The absurd proposition that “no Fjord Trail parking is intended in Cold Spring” seems disingenuous when at the same time the developer maintains a plan to annex Dockside and impose a fleet of buses to carry tourists in and out of our village, and new signs directing tourists to free parking at the Metro-North lot beckon.
The notion that “50 percent of the hikers who now take the train to Cold Spring will instead continue to Breakneck” is without merit — an utterly irresponsible speculation that has no basis in reality considering the attenuated status quo and service plan of the now and future upgraded Breakneck station.
The addition of the Fjord Trail in the Town of Fishkill will further propel Fishkill as one of the top places to live, not only in Dutchess and New York state, but the U.S. As a side note, Mount Beacon is not in Beacon but in the Town of Fishkill.
Albra is the Town of Fishkill supervisor.
Like many others, I am confused about HHFT’s plans, and it only deepens with each public meeting. If Mother Nature doesn’t kill this project soon, it could easily die by its own weight.
We are getting different responses to questions, depending on who we ask. No endowment, but fundraising (yet without an estimated budget — what serious donor would give to that?). Scenic Hudson has veto power over HHFT, or it doesn’t. There is no construction budget, but state parks has an undated one for Phase 1. It is a “unique” public/private partnership but no one can define “unique.” HHFT won’t commercialize Dockside, but it will rent parking spaces on state land. It might use surge pricing, but it really cares about “equi-ty.” It’ll be ADA-compliant, but I, for one, would not push my wheelchair-bound sister on a trail that allows bikes. It will manage the crowds but hopes Metro-North will reduce the number of trains each autumn.
How about killing the boardwalk, which appears to be 53 percent of the whole, and starting at Breakneck? Spending millions for a private park inside public land without clear roles and responsibilities hardly constitutes environmental justice.
Please don’t let Scenic Hudson become the environmental equivalent of Harvard University, where a wealthy donor dictates policy and practice. It’s unseemly and destroys the “brand.”
There needs to be more focus on Route 9D as a major north-south highway and traffic issues that have continued to grow with every new initiative and development issue, from Bear Mountain up through the merge with Route 9 in Poughkeepsie.
I can’t wait to see everyone on this amazing trail. I drove down the Henry Hudson Parkway and witnessed thousands of people comfortably sharing an 8-foot-wide trail along a scenic waterway. If a trail that size can support the population of Manhattan, the Fjord Trail will look empty by comparison. There will be plenty of room to teach your children how to roller skate or ride a bike — things you can’t do safely in Cold Spring — run with friends or sit on a bench and have lunch. Hurry up and finish this trail. [via Facebook]
Sadly, I haven’t spent time there since the crowds came in. I’ll keep my memories and you enjoy the chaos. [via Facebook]
It sounds like when this big-old inclusive trail gets built, you’ll be able to get back out there and enjoy it again. [via Facebook]
The Haldane playground is safe and empty on weekends. It’s a great spot for learning to ride a bike — no traffic. [via Facebook]
The out-of-towners have ruined that area. The amount of garbage they leave behind is shameful. [via Facebook]
The parking should be outside that corridor, with visitors shuttled in. There are great sites along Routes 9 or 301. In fact, the “zombie mall” next to Home Depot would be an excellent site for a visitor center, with shuttle stops between Beacon and Fahnestock State Park to spread people out. [via Facebook]
Amy Kacala, the executive director of HHFT Inc., should step down and let someone qualified reunite our town and move the project forward.
HHFT has engaged with the community in a divisive and amateurish way. The volunteer members of the Philipstown HHFT Data Committee are pillars of the community. The fact that it had to issue a statement in response to HHFT is upsetting, especially when it pointed out conflicts in the data. It appears the hastily presented data is sloppy and useless and that HHFT has ignored and plowed ahead without adequate consultation, feedback or respect for the Data Committee.
I had given Kacala, whom I have never met, the benefit of the doubt, despite many examples of high-handed, tone-deaf and incompetent rolling out of the HHFT process. We need a candidate who can heal the schism that this project has created.
I want to thank the Data Committee for its outstanding work and Philipstown Supervisor John Van Tassel for bringing this outrageous lapse by Scenic Hudson into focus. [via Facebook]
Cheah is a member of the Cold Spring Planning Board.