By Tim Rowland
A network of shuttles to help manage Keene Valley hiker traffic will not get rolling for at least one more year, due to the state’s fears that the buses themselves could become safety hazards.
At Essex County’s weekly Board of Supervisors meeting on Monday, Supervisor Shaun Gillilland said the state is “kiboshing the shuttles” because, while the four buses are at the ready, a plan for safely picking up and dropping off hikers and turning around on a busy State Route 73 is not.
Along with heavy seasonal traffic, major road work is planned on the highway this summer, which further complicates things.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation provided a written statement confirming that it will work with the local governments to create a shuttle system with restroom and parking in 2022 to “play a critical role in helping to manage sustainable visitation in the High Peaks.”
Gillilland said county and state officials rode the routes and talked over potential solutions, without success. “We were looking at all the different possibilities and trying to formulate a course of action for a reduced pilot shuttle program this summer,” he said. “It just didn’t work.”
The state budgeted $800,000 for managing traffic — both vehicular and foot — in the High Peaks this summer, which is anticipated to at least equal the record numbers of a year ago. That fund was to include the bus operation. Gillilland said he hopes the state will at least use the money to supplement front-country steward and hiker-education programs, and address infrastructure that would allow the buses to run in ensuing years.
The buses arrived last summer but did not operate because of the coronavirus pandemic. They’ve been sitting on a lot at the county’s transportation department ever since. The idea was for the state to fund the buses and pay for their operation, while Essex County would see to their operation.
“Essex County and the Town of Keene were ready to go, but the state was not,” Gillilland said after the meeting. “We kept running into roadblock after roadblock.”
Prior to the pandemic, Keene Supervisor Joe Pete Wilson said the buses were to run from the Olympic center at Mount Van Hoevenberg outside of Lake Placid to Frontier Town in North Hudson, stopping at popular trailheads along the way.
With the pandemic in full force, however, it quickly became clear that running buses of hikers visiting from all across the state and nation would be unwise.
This year, with COVID-19 protocols still limiting buses to half-capacity, it seemed a scaled-down version of the route — specifically from Marcy Field to Chapel Pond and the Ridge Trail up Giant Mountain — might be in order. The problem was that there was no suitable way to turn the buses around in the narrow and well-traveled Route 73 corridor without eating into precious parking areas. “The DEC was not happy about taking away parking spaces.” Gillilland said. “And the last thing we need is a bus to be stuck in traffic for 20 minutes.”
An adequate turnaround would require the removal of three or four parking spaces on each side of the road, Wilson said, which in itself would push more cars into the already overrun hamlet of Keene Valley.
But even if the hiker shuttles were to continue on Route 73 to a location with adequate turnaround space — which isn’t available until the intersection with State Route 9 — there are still no suitable pull-outs to serve as bus stops.
“The drop-off and the turnaround — all require using parking space,” Wilson said. “I hope we don’t stop trying, because the shuttle is going to be important. The solution is appropriate planning.”
Surprise, surprise. First, take all the roadside parking away and other parking areas. Second, permit parking at the Ausable Club. Then don’t supply a viable shuttle system. Hey, NY, why don’t you look at New Hampshire and the Franconia Notch where they did not take away the parking UNTIL a shuttle system was up and running!
The goal now appears to be to make hiking from Rt 73 so miserable that nobody will want to do it, thereby reducing numbers and impacts. Let’s see, the major problem is parking, so eliminate parking, don’t provide an alternate means of getting to the trailheads, require parking permits that will be impossible to get on busy weekends, then add steel posts blocking off the shoulders to make the road even more dangerous, and add major road construction. Sounds like a plan!
The shuttles were a feel-good, knee-jerk reaction to a complicated problem. They were purchased before any kind of long-term plan had been formulated. Of course, COVID was another major complication for ridership. Their usage will create as many problems as they solve until an actual long-term hiker plan is devised and implemented. We aren’t even close to a plan.
Having nothing is worse than having something, even if it’s a knee-jerk reaction. The shuttles would at least have demonstrated some action in a positive direction, even if still inconvenient and limited. Now the DEC has, yet again, for the third time in six weeks, made a unilateral decision without consulting with the community the decision will impact. What’s more galling is that they put those delineators up knowing that they were going to postpone shuttle service for another year and made no mention of it during the forum in Keene last Monday, so all this talk of transparency and cooperation is nonsense.
The plan is clear as day.
Make things nice for the members of the Ausable Club.
Hey Adirondack Explorer, why not interview someone connected to New Hampshire’s Franconia Notch shuttle service to find out why they were able to figure out a solution over two years ago? https://www.concordmonitor.com/hiker-shuttle-franconia-nh-white-mountains-25734811
Funny you should mention that….we’re planning a feature on that shuttle, as a story that we’ll run this summer. Thanks for sharing the link!
It took a while. I’ve been sharing links about the Franconia Notch shuttle with almost every article about this parking debacle on 73!
Yeah, it’s been on our radar for a while as well 😉
So when and how can we sue?
Sure seems like enough evidence that the club/whoever they paid off at the DEC and Keene are intentionally restricting access.
Time to eminent domain their golf course
The perfect parking area would be the AMR property. The state should take it over and make it into the High Peaks Visitor Center the region deserves.
The Town of Keene has nothing to do with any of these decisions beyond just being steamrolled by the DEC.
Wow! What a bunch of incompetent idiots. Looks like Basil Exposition and the gang decided it’s too dangerous to drive on RT 73. I think I’ll try that with my boss. I’ll tell him I can’t work anymore because it’s too dangerous to drive in. Are you going to return all the grant money the state gave you to run the shuttles?
Too dangerous to turn around the shuttles, and need another year to plan and ‘study’ how to do it??! This is insane beauracracy. How can anyone make such a big deal about a simple decision! No wonder America is falling behind in so many metrics, because no one can do anything! I’ll tell you how to solve the problem, turn around in the AMR parking lot. Going to go up to Chapel Pond and too worried about turning around there? Then turn around at that crazy loopy Elizabethtown intersection. And also Turn around at the Marcy Field Parking Lot, and also drive through and stop at the Roostercomb and Garden Parking lots. There, problem solved.
They can’t use the AMR parking lot for a turnaround because the whole point of this fiasco is to keep the riffraff from disturbing members of the exclusive Ausable Club. They don’t want any bus dropping people off or picking people up. Are any local officials in the loop on these decisions? They should be getting an earful from their constituents.
Nope. No local officials have been consulted on any of the last three decisions (AMR, delineators, shuttle buses) by the DEC concerning the Town of Keene.
They don’t need the parking lot- just loop through the Club itself. It’s a town road.
Jinxy, do you have a source that shows that is a town road?
I’d love to see a parade of beater cars loop around that town road twenty times.
mufflers optional
I can personally supply two of those!
I can supply a really loud exhaust!!!
Seems like they had the entire year to “figure this out” but they waited until just recently to actually prove out the route. Great planning! But wait…they ran shuttles before and never mentioned any turnaround problem that I recall. hmmmm
Most people would figure out the route and feasibility of a shuttle system prior to purchasing the shuttles. I hope someone is maintaining those vehicles and running them periodically or they will not be in good shape after sitting for two years.
I believe the word “FUBAR” was coined during WW II to describe situations just like this.
Nevertheless, the so-called “Greatest Generation” managed to defeat Hitler and go on to put men on the moon.
Now it seems that the current generation can’t even figure out how to drive a shuttle bus, never mind do a three point turn.
The most charitable explanation I can think of is that COVID-19 left everyone at DEC & DOT with a permanent case of the dreaded “brain fog”.