Thursday, April 21, 2016

DEVELOPMENT EVERYWHERE... BLEAH!
6.4 Mile Run on the Albany County Rail Trail
Thursday, April 21, 2016

Seems like all over the place trees are being cut down and fields are being torn up for construction of new buildings... there were several points where this was very obvious along the rail trail between Voorheesville and Slingerlands, in addition to plenty of sites I see in lots of other places.

I don't know why I was drawn to the rail trail between Voorheesville and Slingerlands today... for some reason as I was thinking about places to run, I kept coming back to it, so finally I decided I might as well make it happen. With the warm weather it was a lot busier than it has been other times I've been there.

One very unexpected sight this evening was a huge barn up on supports near the trail where it crosses Hilton Road. A bit of research when I got home revealed that this barn was originally across the street and was moved about a month ago to its new location, where it may someday have a role to play in the rail trail. Apparently the plan is to construct a new foundation and have the barn settled in its new home by the end of May. In any case moving this structure was a major engineering accomplishment - it's truly immense and dates back to 1898.

On my way home I noticed heavy equipment at the Slingerlands trailhead - the trail between Slingerlands and the Veterans Park in Delmar has been graded and surfaced with stone dust in preparation for paving - another project the County expects to have done by the end of May.

I'll be curious to see what they do with surfacing the section I ran tonight... currently it's very stony, so it's not always the most comfortable surface for running. I know the paving that's currently underway is a joint venture of the County and the Town of Bethlehem, so perhaps the answer will depend on whether or not the County, Bethlehem, and Voorheesville can work together. It will also be interesting to see how they're going to connect the two sections of trail - there's a rail bridge over New Scotland Ave, but access to it on the southern end runs through someone's yard...

JMH
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