Now Let’s Rethink New York’s Transportation Future

Governor Kathy Hochul’s decision to pause the costly and shortsighted Route 17 highway expansion project is a win for common sense, climate action, and communities across the Hudson Valley and Southern Tier. This move signals a long-overdue recognition that New York can’t simply pave its way to progress—and that investing in trails, transit, and safety should take precedence over projects that add lanes, traffic, and emissions.

The proposed Route 17 widening, estimated to cost at least $1.4 billion, promised to shave off a mere one to six minutes from drivers’ commutes–hardly a good return on investment for taxpayers or the planet. To demonstrate how much good could be accomplished with that chunk of change, the ReThink Route 17 Alliance, anchored by Catskill Mountainkeeper, identified an entire slate of projects in their report Invest in Our Communities, Not a Wider Highway that would save lives, improve health, protect greenspaces, provide residents more options to get around, and support vibrant and attractive communities to live, work, and shop. When all added up though, the price tags on all these projects is just about $400 million, a fraction of the cost of widening Route 17. 

As part of the slate of alternative projects, PTNY proposed three major trail initiatives in the region that would create over one hundred miles of new trail, generating countless connections between communities. All these miles of new trail would cost just $176 million, or just over one tenth of the Route 17 expansion budget.

• For $1 million, a new pedestrian bridge across a stream in Ellenville would connect schools, parks, a grocery store, a community center, and neighborhoods. It would allow kids to walk to school and reduce the burden on parents to drive their kids around, and thus reduce traffic in the area.
• For $35 million, we could construct 15 miles of a continuous rail trail in Orange County that would connect Goshen to Campbell Hall to Montgomery and Walden. This would link the Heritage Trail with the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail, and allow safe non-motorized access from multiple places in Orange County to New Paltz and Kingston, and the 750 mile Empire State Trail.
• For $140 million, we could complete the 57-mile O&W rail trail spanning from Port Jervis to Kingston along with an additional 50-mile extension in Sullivan County from Wurtsboro to Livingston Manor.

These are real, tangible projects that deliver lasting benefits, not fleeting seconds of saved drive time.

Caption: Envisioned trail network that could be advanced with additional funding directed toward trails.

That funding could transform how New Yorkers move, connect, and thrive outdoors. Instead of saving a few minutes behind the wheel, these projects would add hundreds of thousands of hours of time spent outside, supporting healthier people, safer streets, and more vibrant local economies.

Beyond the Hudson Valley, there are major trail projects all around the state that we could be building out instead of more highways. To name just a few:

• The Southern Tier Trail, a proposed 80-mile trail connection between Buffalo and Hinsdale that would create a ~260 mile loop route with the Genesee Valley Greenway and Empire State Trail.
• Filling the gaps in the Empire State Trail. Between New York City and Buffalo, the EST is still 15% on-road, not even to mention the Champlain Valley segment between Waterford and the Canadian Border is more than half on-road (stay tuned for more PTNY advocacy on this front!)
• The Long Island Greenway, slated to run 200-miles through 27 communities, connecting the end of the Empire State Trail in Manhattan to Montauk.

As proud members of the ReThink Route 17 Alliance and New Yorkers for Transportation Equity, Parks & Trails New York applauds Governor Hochul’s leadership in putting this highway expansion on hold. Now, we call on the New York State Department of Transportation to go further: to take the highway expansion off the table entirely, invest resources into a fix-it-first approach that prioritizes the backlog of local maintenance and infrastructure projects, and develop a regional transportation plan for communities along the corridor that creates greater access to affordable and reliable multi-modal transportation. 

New York has already shown what’s possible with the Empire State Trail, the nation’s most ambitious multi-use trail network. The next step is clear: invest in connected, community-driven trail and transportation systems—not in more lanes for cars.

Governor Hochul has taken an important first step by pressing pause. Now it’s time for NYSDOT to hit reset and invest in the kinds of projects that truly move New York forward.

Lend your voice! Sign the Rt. 17 Petition to make sure this highway widening is fully taken off the table.