Towns hire firm to design tow path

10/17/2008

Towns hire firm to design tow path

By: Glenn Griffith , Community News

CLIFTON PARK and HALFMOON - Town officials from Clifton Park and Halfmoon last week approved hiring an Albany company to start work on a joint Erie Canal bike-pedestrian tow path project that spans the two municipalities.

The towns joined together in June 2006 to submit a state Department of Transportation grant application to pay for the project. The application was successful and the towns were awarded a $2.1 million Transportation Enhancement Program grant this spring.

The money will be used to rehabilitate three and half miles of Erie Canal tow path that cuts through both towns. Once completed the path will take bikers and hikers from Clam Steam Road in Halfmoon westward under the Twin Bridges of the Northway and into the Vischer Ferry Nature Preserve in Clifton Park.

Foit-Albert Associates has worked with the state Canal Corporation on several similar trail projects. The company was chosen to work on the path's preliminary and final design. Both town boards approved hiring the company at board meetings last week.

Fred Mastroianni of Foit-Albert said his firm will discuss what the municipalities want the trail to become and then design the plans based upon those discussions.

"Our task will be to look at the various alternatives where the trail should go," he said. "We'll make recommendations, draw up the plans, and assist with choosing which company will build it."

The grant is referred to as an 80-20 match grant.

The Department of Transportation will pay 80 percent of the $2.1 million, or $1,680.000. The towns must cover the additional 20 percent which comes to $420,000.

Over the past several months officials from the two towns have discussed what share of the $420,000 figure each will pay. An agreement announced Oct. 6 has Clifton Park paying 60 percent and Halfmoon 40 percent. The split is based on how much of the canal's tow path lies in each town.

The Transportation Enhancement Program is one part of the state Department of Transportations's grant funding mechanism. The TEP program is funded by the federal government through the U.S. Highway Administration. The federal money returned to the state is administered by the Department of Transportation.

The Department of Transportation has awarded $91 million in grants for 97 projects.

The enhancement program recognizes that transportation funding must reach more than the traditional infrastructure system.

The program's funds support unique pedestrian, beautification, and environmentally sensitive projects across the state.

Categories specified by the federal government as part of the grant application include facilities for bikes and pedestrians, historic preservation, scenic or historic highway programs, and rehabilitating historic facilities like canals.