Sends letter to governor, state parks
The Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail said last month it will delay for at least three years a decision on connecting Dockside Park in Cold Spring to its 7.5-mile linear park between the village and Beacon, but state Sen. Rob Rolison and Philipstown’s supervisor are asking for a longer pause.
HHFT said in an Aug. 16 letter to Supervisor John Van Tassel, Cold Spring Mayor Kathleen Foley and Nelsonville Mayor Chris Winward that a decision on a proposed half-mile segment between Dockside Park and Little Stony Point would wait until the nonprofit completes portions of the Fjord Trail north of the Metro-North tunnel at Breakneck, which could be as early as 2027.
In April, the three officials declared their opposition to a Cold Spring section of the trail, although two other members of the Cold Spring Village Board besides Foley later expressed their support.
Rolison, a Republican whose district includes Philipstown and Beacon, called for a “more deliberative” process for the Fjord Trail and more local input in a Sept. 5 letter addressed to Amy Kacala, HHFT’s executive director, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Randy Simons, the commissioner pro tem for state parks.
In addition to conversations with the town and village officials, Rolison said his views were shaped by a tour of Dockside, a state park maintained by Cold Spring. Rolison said he “walked the narrow width of Dockside Park’s proposed connector path” with the Shoreline Trail, a section of the Fjord Trail skirting the Hudson River north to Little Stony Point and then on to Breakneck Ridge.
“It is clear to the casual observer” that Dockside “lacks the capacity” to handle large numbers of walkers and bikers, said Rolison, who otherwise supports the Fjord Trail. A “phased-in approach” would be more prudent, he said, with HHFT first building the Little Stony Point to Breakneck riverside segment and analyzing the impact on pedestrians and traffic before deciding on the Dockside link.
“Little Stony Point satisfies the original intent to create a north-south trail with visually impressive views of the Hudson River without channeling ever-larger amounts of foot and other traffic into the heart” of Cold Spring, said Rolison.
Van Tassel said during a Town Board meeting on Sept. 5 that he had believed HHFT would delay its decision on Dockside for two years following the completion of the Shoreline segment between Little Stony Point and Breakneck. That would allow “measures to draw crowds north to prove true or not,” he said.
In addition to the two-year pause, he asked his board to pursue from HHFT a “binding agreement” that the town and village boards “will be represented in the decision to proceed to Dockside.” Van Tassel also said that he would like to see three “feeder trails” that have been discussed built south of Little Stony Point.
“When we question state parks or HHFT, we are told that this has to be to the benefit of the residents of New York state,” said Van Tassel. “My answer has been consistent — that it cannot be to the detriment of the Town of Philipstown or the villages.”
HHFT envisions the Dockside segment as a friendlier route for the visitors who disembark at the Metro-North station and now use Fair Street to get to Route 9D on their way to Little Stony Point and Breakneck.
In their letter, Kacala and Chris Davis, HHFT’s chair, said the preferred route from Cold Spring still remains the Shoreline Trail, but opposition from some elected officials makes it “sensible” to wait until the Fjord Trail’s Breakneck Connector and Bridge and the renovation of Dutchess Manor into a visitor’s center with parking are complete.
Both are expected to reduce congestion on Route 9D created by hikers visiting the Hudson Highlands State Park Preserve and Breakneck Ridge.
The Metro-North station at Breakneck is slated for an upgrade, and HHFT is planning to shuttle visitors between train stations, parking areas and trails; add signage; and create a phone app that visitors can use to plan their trips.
“We and the experts expect all of these taken together to fundamentally change existing visitation patterns, including pulling cars and hikers away from Cold Spring, as they are designed to do,” wrote Davis and Kacala.
They added that state parks, as part of its environmental review of the Fjord Trail, will analyze routes from Cold Spring other than the Shoreline Trail. It will also provide Cold Spring with funding to mitigate the impact of tourism.
Kacala said on Thursday (Sept. 12) that the Fjord Trail has “broad-based support, locally and throughout the Hudson Valley” because of its goals to provide “equitable access to New York State Parks, solve existing safety concerns around visitation, restore and protect natural resources and enhance quality of life for local communities.”
Thank you, Sen. Rolison! Further to this blowback, the tourist shuttle buses have long been an unwelcome threat of the developer’s plan, and I have tried to rally my neighbors to petition any such compounding of vehicular traffic with more unnecessary glut. I would now like to draw our opposition focus there.
Like Dockside, the developer seeks to usurp our infrastructure for the selfish purposes of using the village as a payless homebase for their theme park. This affliction will be most poignantly noticeable during weekend peak traffic on Main Street, as well as Route 9D. If the buses are to be thrust upon us despite large opposition, I support a program that the developer be charged a fee per pickup, much in the same way the Seastreak pays a docking fee, perhaps a modest $500 per bus to be paid the Village by the developer. The tourist bus fleet is most unwelcome! I’m eager to learn what villagers think?
This will give the villagers more time to come up with their own plan, a more modest one, which will preserve wildlife habitat along the Hudson, and create a safer route for hikers to Breakneck and back. It is indeed possible to do both, without dramatically changing the existing scenery or creating a serious traffic problem from which there is no recourse. The best solutions involve local people; respect for their unique community and environment should come first, not the singular vision of a billionaire developer.
I am disappointed with the decision of the Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail to delay building the section of trail between Cold Spring and Little Stony Point by three years or more. Since I am in my 80s, the odds are I will never get a chance to walk this exciting path.
My pleasure in the outdoors began with childhood summers spent on the heavily populated beaches of Brooklyn. As a teenager, along with some high school friends, I joined the American Youth Hostels. We spent our weekends on long hikes in Harriman State Park alongside what I considered a sophisticated group of adults in their 20s. I remain grateful for the vision and generosity of families such as the Harrimans, Rockefellers and Fahnestocks, who made it possible for a city kid like me to experience the woodlands and lakes of New York that were so often off-limits as private property.
They understood, as did Teddy Roosevelt, the necessity of building a strong constituency to protect America’s wilderness areas beyond the privileged few who owned large tracts by making them the responsibility of all citizens. I understand the fear of overcrowding; I once visited Provincetown in the summer. I still believe the boardwalk would relieve pressure on Cold Spring’s streets, particularly Fair Street, not exacerbate it.
I hope Cold Springers will see ourselves as stewards of our woods and waters, not as door-slammers. Only by expanding access to outdoor recreation will we expand the number of young people who make it a priority to preserve and increase our protected areas. The north gate deserves to be kept open.
While I admire Teddy Roosevelt’s sweeping vision of grand parks, accessible to large numbers of the world’s citizens, access to a small area like the Highlands should not be placed above the ability of local towns to support and manage it. This isn’t the Grand Canyon. This is a narrow strip along the Hudson, which already offers plenty of access to people of all ages and abilities in parks nearby.
Before you cry “NIMBY!,” I don’t believe any resident would be against a more modest trail, a solution that will ameliorate traffic is-sues and create a safe zone for hikers. However, careful and thoughtful consideration must be given to a project that is proving to be as large and unwieldy as this.
Before we allow developers, like Scenic Hudson and Chris Davis, to build a theme park, it is right and reasonable that the people who live and work in our communities be given all the respect, time and consideration they deserve.