The Kaaterskill Trolley will not return this summer, ending a four-season run that carried visitors to some of Greene County’s most crowded outdoor destinations just as the state considers new limits on access to Kaaterskill Falls.
Ryan Chadwick, who started the shuttle service in 2022, said last week that the trolley had ceased operations indefinitely. The service used two custom-built Molly’s Trolleys from Maine, with room for 65 riders, to serve Kaaterskill Falls, North-South Lake Campground, and nearby destinations around Haines Falls during the warm-weather months.
Chadwick and operations manager Kody Leach said the vehicles had been off the mountain for months.
The shutdown comes amid a broader debate over how to manage visitation in Kaaterskill Clove, where parking congestion, litter, crowding, and safety concerns have frustrated local officials and state land managers for years. The debate has intensified after a 15-year-old boy from Brooklyn died April 18 at Fawn’s Leap, a popular but unsanctioned swimming hole on Kaaterskill Creek, where authorities said he became trapped by a hydraulic current at the base of the falls.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation released a consultant report on visitor-use management for Kaaterskill Clove on April 3 and held a virtual public meeting April 29 to gather feedback. DEC has said the report’s recommendations have not been adopted by the agency.
About 85 residents, business owners, and other interested people attended the webinar. Many criticized the proposed restrictions and lamented the loss of the trolley service, according to Hunter Supervisor Sean Mahoney.
There was “not one pro-restrictions comment on the call last night,” Mahoney said the following day.
The consultant report recommended capping daily visitors to Kaaterskill Falls at 1,000 and creating a reservation system, saying the central problem at the falls is visitor volume, not a lack of parking. Consultants said the area had about 1,850 visitors on peak days in 2023, with a maximum of nearly 3,000, and recommended timed entry from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., with 25 tickets issued per hour, gate-controlled access points, and traffic and parking staff.
The report also said traffic and overflow parking tied to Kaaterskill Falls have strained operations at North-South Lake Campground and Day Use Area, where visitors are directed when closer lots fill.
The DEC did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
DEC said in its April announcement that releasing the report does not mean the agency has adopted its recommendations, and that the recommendations will be evaluated alongside public feedback, ecological assessments, legal requirements and other land-management considerations.
Chadwick said rising insurance costs made the trolley harder to sustain. He also cited what he described as a lack of support from DEC, saying the department sent cease-and-desist letters over the trolley’s use of the Laurel House Road parking lot as a turnaround point and declined to promote the shuttle as an alternative to roadside parking.
Chadwick, Leach, and Mahoney said the letters were related to the parking lot, which is on state property. DEC had not responded to a request for comment by press time.
Mahoney said the state missed simple opportunities to direct visitors toward the trolley.
“For example, there are these LED signs along Route 23A, the large signs with the sort of dot matrix lettering,” Mahoney said. “There are two of them: one at the bottom of the mountain road, and one at Horseshoe Bend. They say ‘No Parking at Kaaterskill Clove.’ We wanted them to say, ‘Shuttles available. Parking at Mountaintop Historical Society.’ They said no.”
Chadwick and Leach said the trolley also helped reduce litter by collecting trash near stops and heavily used areas.
“Our first year, in July alone, we picked up 200 bags of trash,” Chadwick said.
After the company added garbage cans near trolley stops, Chadwick said, the amount fell to 60 bags for the entire next season.
Asked about the state’s consideration of new visitor limits while, in his view, failing to support a local shuttle system that had helped address trash and parking problems, Chadwick said, “Make it make sense.”
Chadwick said the idea for the trolley came from his childhood in Wells, Maine, where beach trolleys were part of the summer landscape.
“I grew up in a small town in Maine–Wells, Maine–that has these trolleys that go up and down the beach, and as a kid I was always fascinated by them, and my friend from high school actually builds trolleys,” Chadwick said. “So these came from my hometown. Driving up the Clove during covid, it was madness. So I figured trolleys would be a good way to literally and figuratively clean up the Clove.”
Mahoney said he still viewed shuttle service as part of any workable solution for Kaaterskill Clove.
“I do still think a shuttle is an important part of the solution,” Mahoney said. “But any shuttle has to be embraced by the DEC. There’s a new regional director, Sean Mahar, and he’s thinking of things in a positive light. I think he gets it, and I’m optimistic about working with him in the future.”
Lex Sottile is a contributing writer. Send correspondence to reporting@theoverlooknews.com.