NY rail, trail backers spar over Adirondack route
AP
Dick Beamish looks at the rotting railroad ties on the causeway across Lake Clear and imagines them gone, replaced by a smooth 90-mile trail beckoning through the heart of the Adirondack Mountains.
But railroad enthusiasts are equally passionate about a different vision, one that has bikers and hikers enjoying a trail alongside renovated tracks carrying train passengers on a scenic tour of mountain vistas between whistle-stop towns teeming with tourists.
The rail-trail debate has simmered in New York's northern mountains for decades, and railroad buffs long held the upper hand because state officials had no interest in revisiting a 1995 management plan that favored keeping the stretch as a historic railroad corridor.
But that could be changing. Under pressure from trail advocates and local communities, state officials have agreed to public hearings on what to do with the state-owned corridor from Old Forge in the southwestern Adirondacks to Lake Placid in the northeastern region.
Read more at http://www.fltimes.com/news/state/article_bfa7ae7d-f9fb-5175-95c3-96605dc68738.html
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