Not so quick with the Quickway expansion

Mountainkeeper expresses concerns

By Michelle Adams-Thomas | Manor Ink

Livingston Manor, NY – It looks like big things could be happening with Rte. 17 soon.

A plan to turn Sullivan County’s main artery into a three-lane highway in each direction is included in Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed 2023 budget. Some want this to happen because it could allow more tourists easier access to towns and activities in Sullivan County and the Catskills. Others fear that the plan will have a negative impact on the environment. They want to know what the long-term effects of this project will be on the region’s ecosystem.

An important aspect of living in the Catskills, many believe, is looking after the habitat. One of those persons is Ramsay Adams, founder and executive director of Catskill Mountainkeeper, a nonprofit organization that works to protect the region’s natural resources. Adams sees the highway expansion proposal as more harmful than helpful.

“It will increase traffic, truck traffic,” Adams said. “Rte. 17 winds its way through mountains and valleys. You don’t just expand it to six lanes; it brings massive construction and more of the corridor for no reason. It has implications on water quality and air quality as well.”

Moving forward, Adams plans to get more people involved. “We plan on setting up an information campaign,” he said. “I believe the next step in the process from the point of view of the Dept. of Transportation is the final moments.” At that point, Adams sees an opportunity. “The report will have been issued and the public will have an opportunity to comment on the proposal.”

Nearly a decade in coming

Even though the expansion plan is being talked about this year, it has been in the works since at least 2013. The proposal to add a third lane to the highway, potentially converting Rte. 17 into Interstate 86 over time in Orange and Sullivan counties, would allow more tourism, greater business access and easier transportation of goods and services. According to a recent article in the Albany Times Union, destinations that could benefit from a third lane include Legoland, Bethel Woods Center for the Arts and Woodbury Commons Premium Outlets. They and other establishments have stated that they are in favor of the proposal because it will bring increased opportunities for economic development.

The highway’s expansion is back in the news because it is part of Hochul’s proposed 2023 budget, including a five-year, $32.8 billion capital improvement plan. This budget must be passed by Apr. 1. The project could potentially cost between $215 million to $320 million for Sullivan County, and $310 million to $720 million for Orange County, plus more for interchange upgrades.

The New York State Department of Transportation recently completed a study looking at the environmental impacts of the project. But in a December opinion piece for the Times Herald-Record, Adams called the report “seriously misguided.” He said that taxpayers will bear the burden of building and maintaining a highway that will just mean more air pollution from cars. He added that it would be better to “improve and repair Rte. 17 from Liberty to Harriman” and to focus on those specific areas that are plagued by congestion.

Creating rather than solving problems

Regarding the proposal’s benefits for Legoland, Bethel Woods and Woodbury Commons, Adams is skeptical. “None of those places have traffic problems, so none of them needs or particularly wants this expansion,” he said. He believes that this “growth” could focus on other things. “We’re not mitigating a problem that we already have,” Adams said. “This could potentially bring an actual traffic problem for those facilities.”

To get another view on the project, Manor Ink reached out to 17-Forward-86, a coalition of residents and businesses that supports the expansion of Rte. 17, but the group did not return a request for comment. The group’s website, 17forward86.org, says it supports the expansion because it will “strengthen the region’s economy by improving access for tourists and businesses while enhancing commuter safety and reducing environmental damage from vehicular emissions caused by idling motorists.”

Many studies, however, have shown that widening highways doesn’t fix congestion in the long term. Many critics say that doing so causes a problem called “induced demand,” where more drivers are encouraged to use expanded highways, adding to traffic instead of relieving it.

According to a 2020 study from the group Transportation for America, “Those new lane-miles haven’t come cheap and we are spending billions to widen roads and seeing unimpressive, unpredictable results in return. Further, the urbanized areas expanding their freeways more rapidly aren’t necessarily having more success curbing congestion – in fact, in many cases the opposite is true.”

This plan could come with many advantages for local businesses, but critics say that it could hurt the environment – all while not really fixing the problem of traffic to begin with. What’s more important to you?