Crossing the Black Bridge
We finally got a chance to check out the new paved path in Green Island that leads up to the southern end of the Black Bridge. And short story short: it's nice.
The Black Bridge is worth checking out sometime if you haven't already. There's a small parking lot at the end of Cannon Street on the Green Island side, and it's a short pedal from downtown Troy via the Green Island Bridge.
The bridge connects Green Island and Van Schaick Island in Cohoes across one of the Mohawk River's curling paths into the Hudson River. And it's part of a multi-use path that connects Green Island, Van Schaick Island, Peebles Island, and Waterford. The roughly two-mile corridor -- the Delaware Ave path in Cohoes -- is a nice walk or pedal as you pass by the fairways of the Van Schaick Island Country Club, the Van Schaick Mansion, a bunch of new residential developments in Cohoes, the old Matton Shipyard, cross the bridge onto the northern end of Peebles Island, and then cross another bridge over to Waterford with a view of the locks.
The setting is beautiful -- and a little bit wild. Late Sunday afternoon we glided past a deer and saw a bald eagle from the Black Bridge.
Look up
A few bridge/path photos are at the top in large format -- click or scroll all the way up.
Zooming out a bit
The Black Bridge is important connection between the Mohawk-Hudson Bike-Hike Trail and the Champlain Canalway Trail, which picks up in Waterford near the bridge from Peebles Island. The Champlain Canalway Trail is in line to be paved all the way from Waterford to to Whitehall, near Lake Champlain.
Zooming out a bit more
If you roll out the big map of this region and mark all the various trails, connections, trails in progress, and potential trails, you can start to see the outline of how the Capital Region is starting to build out a larger network of walk/bike trails, and how it could become a key node in the statewide system.
One example: The Mohawk-Hudson Bike-Hike Trail, Helderberg-Hudson Rail Trail, and the planned Albany-Hudson Electric Trail could all end up connecting in downtown Albany via the planned Albany waterfront connector and the possible next version of the Livingston Ave Bridge. That opens up a bunch of interesting opportunities for tourism, neighborhoods, business development -- and, you know, people who just want to go for a nice bike ride.
Capital Region Trails Plan
Speaking of Capital Region trails... There's an open house for the new Capital Region Trails Plan September 13 at the Albany Heritage Area Visitors Center at Quackenbush Square from 2-6 pm.
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Comments
And there's more in Waterford/Cohoes. From the Waterford end of the bridge from Peebles Island, cross south on the next bridge to the west and go up to the level of the top of the lock. From there you can bike or walk along the old Champlain Canal all the way south to the Mohawk River.
... said Chuck on Aug 29, 2018 at 5:48 PM | link