Greene County was awarded $731,440 in federal funding for an accessible sidewalk in Haines Falls that would link the Kaaterskill Rail Trail to the future Cortina Connector trail.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the funding in an Oct. 14 press release. The grant was awarded through the Federal Highway Administration’s Transportation Alternatives Program, administered by the New York State Department of Transportation.
The 5-foot-wide sidewalk will meet Americans with Disabilities Act standards and run along state Route 23A and North Lake Road in the hamlet, connecting the Kaaterskill Rail Trail at the Mountain Top Historical Society campus to the future Cortina Connector trail, across Route 23A from Peace Village.
“We’re super excited about what this TAP grant means to the hamlet of Haines Falls, as well as trail connectivity throughout the town of Hunter,” Supervisor Sean Mahoney said in an interview. “This is a huge, huge step forward, and we can’t wait to get started.”
The town had applied for the grant by July, citing a need for pedestrian safety improvements in Haines Falls. The remaining $182,860 of the project’s $914,300 estimated cost will come from the state Department of Transportation and funding secured by state Sen. Michelle Hinchey.
The sidewalk will close a gap in the 11-mile Hunter Regional Trail Corridor between the village of Hunter and Haines Falls.
“With this vision of a connected trail system that goes from, essentially, North-South Lake Campground in the town of Hunter all the way to Hunter Mountain, we are making some incredible, immense progress,” Mahoney said. “This grant is a huge piece of that.”
The funding comes as the town prepares for accessibility improvements to the Hunter Branch Rail Trail, with construction scheduled to begin in 2027, officials said. Work will include tree clearing, surface preparation and smoothing, and grading to meet federal accessibility standards for a multi-use trail.
The sidewalk project still needs approval from the state Department of Transportation for a pedestrian crossing on state Route 23A.
Michelle Yost of Greene County Soil and Water assisted the town and county in securing the grant. She said the sidewalk would bring needed safety improvements to a heavily visited area of the town.
“It will definitely help with increasing the connectivity of New York State public lands with the hamlet of Haines Falls, the village of Tannersville, and the village of Hunter, and helping to really distribute and move people beyond the hotspot of Kaaterskill Falls and give folks an alternative,” she said. “Increasing that parking-community connectivity and having safe pedestrian access, especially right there in Haines Falls, will help the Hunter regional trails with moving people west.”
Once the funding is received, the next step is designing the sidewalk, Yost said. Albany County engineering firm Creighton Manning will handle the design. She said she expected the sidewalk to be completed around 2028.
“If we can get through most of the design next year, perhaps we can construct it the following year, which would put us into 2028,” she said. “That would be a realistic timeline.”
Yost cited the recent influx of visitors to the town of Hunter as a reason the sidewalk is needed. Catskill Center stewards counted 3,346 visitors at Kaaterskill Falls on Oct. 10, the largest single-day count since the steward program began tracking visitors in 2018.
“In terms of the tourism hitting record numbers, projects like this that actually create safe pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure are instrumental,” she said.
Connor Greco is a staff reporter for The Overlook covering Windham, Hunter, and surrounding Greene County communities. Send correspondence to connor@theoverlooknews.com.
