page_title: Hudson Valley Rail Trail
section_title: Conversion to trail
hierarchical_section_title: Hudson Valley Rail Trail / History / Conversion to trail
caption_attribution_description: English: A defunct railway signal on the Hudson Valley Rail Trail in the hamlet of Highland in the town of Lloyd, New York.
context_page_description: The Hudson Valley Rail Trail is a paved 4-mile east–west rail trail in the town of Lloyd in Ulster County, New York, stretching from the Hudson River through the hamlet of Highland. The trail was originally part of the Poughkeepsie Bridge Route, a rail corridor that crossed the Hudson via the Poughkeepsie Bridge. Controlled by a variety of railroads throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the bridge was damaged and became unusable after a 1974 fire. By the 1980s the corridor's then-owner, Conrail, had routed all rail traffic in the region north through Selkirk, and was eager to relieve itself of the bridge and adjoining rights-of-way. In 1984, it sold the entire property for one dollar to a felon who did not maintain it or pay taxes on it. The section of the corridor west of the Hudson was seized by Ulster County in 1991 and transferred to the town of Lloyd.
  During the 1990s, a broadband utility seeking to lay fiber optic cable paid the town to pass through the former corridor. The town used part of its payment to pave the route and open it as a public rail trail in 1997. The creation of the trail was supported by a local Rotary club, which built a pavilion along the trail.
context_section_description: Parcels of the right-of-way between Lloyd and the neighboring town of New Paltz were sold off by the county shortly before ownership of the remaining corridor was transferred to Lloyd and converted to a rail trail. Roughly $400,000 in funding to convert the corridor to a trail was acquired through an easement from the town of Lloyd to a broadband utility for the laying of fiber optic cable, though only $70,000 was needed to pave the trail. The trail remains a right-of-way for the fiber optic line. The development of the trail was supported by Highland's Rotary club, which has since built several utilities for trail users, including a pavilion, garden and parking lot. The corridor was officially opened as a trail in 1997. Initially 2.5 to 3 miles (4.0 to 4.8 km) long, it stretched from Riverside Road in the west to Vineyard Avenue in the east; the removal of an overpass on Vineyard Avenue, as well as a blockage under a bridge on U.S. Route 9W, prevented the trail from continuing east to the Poughkeepsie Bridge.
  Lloyd received a $224,000 state and federal grant in the summer of 2000 to create such a connection. Additional funding for the eastern extension was provided in November 2006, when the state granted $1.5 million to construct a bridge and a tunnel, and to complete the path. Lloyd received a $7,500 grant in 2002 to extend the trail west to the Black Creek Wetlands Complex; the town received an additional grant for $20,000 in May 2005 to complete the Black Creek extension.
  In 2006, a local businessman donated an antique caboose to the trail Association; this was placed beside the pavilion. Built in 1915, it was "one of ... the first cabooses made of steel instead of wood". An October 2007 study of paint chips from the caboose found the paint contained lead. The study was released less than a week before a town supervisor election in Lloyd; one of the candidates, Ray Costantino, was president of the Hudson Valley Rail Trail Association, and one of the early proponents of the trail. He claimed the timing of the study was politically motivated. Costantino subsequently became town supervisor, and the caboose had its paint replaced and was repaired at a total cost of $4,500. A second caboose, dating from 1926, is located at the trail's parking lot on Haviland Road.
  Lloyd's police department became the first in the county to purchase a Segway, in 2007, for the express purpose of patrolling the rail trail. The trail has been occasionally vandalized. Lloyd's Police Chief felt that use of such a vehicle would enable officers to patrol the trail for longer periods of time, and that it could also be used to patrol other areas of the town. Seven officers were expected to use the Segway, which contains an automated external defibrillator, and can go as fast as 12 ¹⁄₂ miles per hour (20.1 km/h).
  In March 2009, Ulster County received almost $21 million in stimulus funds. The funding included a $3.16 million project to complete the trail between Lloyd and the Poughkeepsie Bridge. Some funding for the architectural and engineering aspects of the project came from the reserve fund created after the town's fiber optic deal. The Rail Trail Association also received a $1,500 grant from a public-benefit corporation, the Hudson River Valley Greenway, to print brochures. Construction for the 1.28-mile (2.06 km) section was underway by that September. In March 2010, a portion of New Paltz Road was closed pending the replacement of a bridge over the trail.
  The official groundbreaking ceremony took place on May 4, 2010, and the trail was expected to be completed by October. The bridge over Vineyard Avenue was opened to pedestrian traffic on July 16, 2010. The only remaining obstruction was the placement of a bridge carrying Mile Hill Road over the trail, which was expected to be completed in August. The crossing at US 9W had been remedied; the new section let "users to cross either over or under" the highway. To celebrate the opening of the Vineyard Avenue bridge, Route 44–55 throughout Highland (which includes Vineyard Avenue) was shut down f
caption: A defunct railway signal on the trail by Commercial Avenue
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