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New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Planning Unit Canal Trails Project Files

Some content may contain outdated and offensive terminology. See: New York State Archives Statement on Language in Descriptive Resources

Overview of the Records

Administrative History

During the 1960s, some communities along the Erie Canal, seeking new ways to benefit from the canal that had lost most of its commercial traffic, began building local trails on remnants of the old towpath. The first public expression of the Canalway Trail concept came with the release of the New York State Canal Recreation Development Plan in the early 1970s. Soon thereafter, the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (OPRHP) and the New York State Department of Transportation (DOT) entered into a formal agreement for joint development of the 524-mile long canal system for recreational purposes. This system included the Erie, Oswego, and Champlain canals.

These two agencies made arrangements with landowners over the years to acquire the land necessary to construct these trails, and many sections of the Canalway Trail were constructed over the next two decades. However, the Canalway Trail was owned and managed in piecemeal fashion: some trail segments were managed by OPRHP and others by the Department of Transportation. During the 1980s, both OPRHP and DOT turned over management of their trail segments to the Canal Corporation, even though they continued to legally own them. OPRHP also used to manage the parks that were located at the various locks along the canals, but management of these sites was also turned over to the Canal Corporation at the same time. More sections of the trail have been constructed by the Canal Corporation over the years since the transfer, and OPRHP has taken on merely an advisory role in the continued planning and development of canal trails.

The Canalway Trail System is composed of four major segments: the 100-mile Erie Canal Heritage Trail in Western New York; the 36-mile Old Erie Canal State Park Trail in Central New York; the 60-mile Mohawk-Hudson Bikeway in the eastern Capital Region; and the eight-mile Glens Falls Feeder Canal Heritage Trail in the foothills of the Adirondacks near Lake George. In addition, there are smaller segments of the Canalway Trail System. These trail segments and other areas of the Canalway Trail System connect with trails leading throughout New York State, providing one of the most extensive trail networks in the country.

Scope and Content Note

This series covers only those segments of the Canalway Trail that were owned by the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (OPRHP), and therefore contains records created during the period in which OPRHP managed those segments. Records include reports, correspondence, maps, memoranda, photographs and slides, inspection reports, landowner agreements, legislation, planning files, individual trail master plans, copies of master plans of towns impacted by trail development, environmental impact statements and environmental assessments, and other related background materials.

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Access Restrictions

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