A $30 million project to rebuild the full length of Tinker Street, from the Village Green, got a show of conditional support this week, as the Environmental Commission heard from supporters who described a project aimed at improving traffic safety – especially for pedestrians and bicycle riders.
“Tinker Street has been determined not safe,” Complete Streets Committee member Howard Cohen said at the commission’s meeting on Wednesday. “Everybody in this room has a story about it.”
The project would replace bridges, install ADA-compliant sidewalks, upgrade water and sewer infrastructure, and reshape several key crossings. It would also add raised crosswalks, improved sightlines near bridge approaches and storefront-level sidewalk grades to make it easier for wheelchair users to enter businesses, Cohen said. Onsite inspections started last year and construction is set to begin in 2027.
Complete Streets, led by Chair Grace Murphy, has worked with DOT to gather crash data from police agencies, map more than 500 public parking spaces and push for lower speed limits. The redesign includes options for wider sidewalks or a shared-use path, each with trade-offs involving parking and mature street trees. Any trees that will be removed from the highway right-of-way will be replaced, even if they’re on private property, Cohen said. Concerns regarding which trees may come down and how replacements will be selected remain a point of discussion among commission members and the Woodstock Tree Committee. The Environmental Commission conditionally supports the Complete Streets proposal, but wants to ensure that mature trees are replaced with “environmentally appropriate trees,” according to the commissions board chair Susan Paynter.
The DOT will present updated maps and design options at a public town hall in January. The date hasn’t been announced.
Representatives from the Woodstock Land Conservancy opened Wednesday’s meeting with a push to extend the Ashokan Rail Trail eastward along a 1.7-mile county-owned segment near Basin Road in West Hurley, a long-debated stretch that they said is wide enough only for a trail, not the railway proposed by the Catskill Mountain Railroad.
“It’s really not feasible to have both rail and trail,” said Karl Beard, a retired National Park Service conservation planner, citing steep slopes, rock cuts and wetlands that shrink portions of the corridor to just 13 or 14 feet wide.
The section borders “roughly 100 acres of high-quality wetlands,” leaving “no realistic engineering path” to accommodate both uses, Beard said. National design standards require at least 25 feet for a shared-use trail and rail bed.
Engineering estimates put the cost of a trail-only project at under $4 million, compared with more than $10 million for a rail and trail design.
“Extending the rail primarily benefits one private company, while extending the trail benefits the people of Ulster County, the true owners,” said Andy Mossey, the Conservancy’s executive director. County studies show the Ashokan Rail Trail already generates more than $5 million in annual visitor spending, and a Kingston connection could add another $2.5 million, he said. Mossey called the segment the “missing link” connecting the Catskill Park to the Empire State Trail hub in Kingston.
Portions of the Ulster County Legislature have already toured the corridor, and advocates plan to bring their presentation to additional town board meetings in Hurley and elsewhere ahead of a 2026 legislative decision. Supporters of the trail-only plan said the railroad’s design assumptions underestimate environmental constraints and excavation costs, a disagreement the county legislature will ultimately need to resolve.
Patty Goodwin, the Conservancy’s president, urged the Environmental Commission to support trail connectivity and join guided walks this winter.
“We need your help to advocate on behalf of trail connectivity,” she said.
Catskill Mountain Railroad, which operates its tourist train west of Kingston, received a $667,000 state rail grant last year to develop a Basin Road terminal and has published engineering materials saying that rail and trail can safely coexist.
Hurley Supervisor, whose town didn’t endorse the railroad’s plan, said it had divided residents and offered “no benefit to Hurley,” saying that “if the county was going to bring the railroad to Basin Road, why would someone get on the train in Hannaford Plaza in Kingston to go to Hannaford in Hurley?”
Boms described the review process as emotionally charged, including security screenings at meetings and threats made against one individual. The town ultimately chose to “make no decision” rather than further split residents, he said.
Noah Eckstein is the editor-in-chief of The Overlook. Send correspondence to noah@theoverlooknews.com.