The restored Hotel Saranac is visible from the Union Depot train station in Saranac Lake. (Photo provided — Larry Roth)

Let me state this up front: Alternative 1, keeping the 1996 definition of travel corridors, is the best choice for now. The Adirondack Park Agency’s preferred choice, Alternative 6, will create more problems than it solves, and the reasons given to support it don’t add up. While the Remsen-Lake Placid corridor is the immediate target, the Tahawus line to North Creek and down to Saratoga is also on the chopping block. There’s much at stake here.

I read the draft print version. I attended public comment hearings in both Ray Brook and Albany. I saw the presentation given to describe the alternatives and the reasoning behind the amendment. I listened to people who spoke and gave my own comments. Here’s my conclusion.

The travel corridor amendment is a Trojan horse. It’s promoted as giving the state more flexibility in managing the Adirondack Park, but what this flexibility is all about is making it easier to remove rail corridors, plain and simple. It’s an attempt to do an end run around the decision by Justice Main last year that threw out the state plan to convert the rail corridor from Tupper Lake to Lake Placid into a trail while still calling it a travel corridor.

Travel corridors have been defined as highways and railroads; the new definition would expand that to include rail trails and rails with trails. (Note: There’s no mention of highway trails or highways with trails.) The metric for deciding what would be the best use of a travel corridor seems to be what would have the biggest positive impact on tourism — and there’s the rub.

Highways, railroads and trails all do tourism — but highways and railroads also do transportation. This is why they were classified together as travel corridors in the first place. No trail can take trucks off highways or move people and goods like roads and rails. This amendment approaches the “arbitrary and capricious” standard that killed state’s previous plan for the rails. (It also ignores the land title and historic preservation issues.)

Some speakers favored the amendment. A snowmobile dealer told how his customers are being injured and their machines damaged by the rails when there’s not enough snow. The state snowmobile association wants the Remsen-Lake Placid rail corridor turned into a trail. Further, they also want the 800-plus miles of historic rail corridors elsewhere in the Park to be considered for future travel corridors, if and when. The wilderness groups that want the rails gone should be careful what they wish for. If this amendment passes, expect to do battle with snowmobile interests wherever rails used to run.

Expanding the dependence of the region on the snowmobile economy is risky, no matter how much money they bring in.

1. They’re seasonal — how to get by the rest of the year?

2. They’re weather dependent — no snow, no snowmobilers.

3. Their numbers are in decline.

4. Local users want the trail for when it does snow — but their money doesn’t count for tourism.

5. Even the snowmobile dealer admitted, “There was more snow when I was young.” Winter is not what it used to be.

There’s no mention of climate change in the amendment draft or the previous plans for the rail corridor. There’s no excuse for that lack, not the way the weather is changing as climate shifts. Keeping rail corridors intact is going to become more important, not less. Rail is more energy-efficient than highway travel. It offers immediate ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Rail is there if and when highways are disrupted. Extreme weather events will increase as time goes on; the region needs resilience — and that means rails.

I heard several people try to tie the trail to transportation needs. They said the local bus system is really bad. They argued there are people in the Tri-Lakes who can’t afford a car; the trail would let them bike to their jobs. Trail advocates have argued there’s no need for a railroad because the area can’t support mass transit — but these complaints show that there is a need for better public transportation. It says something that the local economy is not providing jobs for people that would enable them to afford cars. It’s also a bit much to expect people to bike to work no matter the time of day or the extremes of Adirondack weather.

Rails are multi-use. The same rails that support tourism could also host something like a streetcar service in the Tri-Lakes. (Think Paul Smith’s Electric Railroad updated for the 21st century.) This would address public transportation needs and be a heck of a tourist attraction. (People could even bring bikes on board.) Crazy idea? Perhaps — but it’s how the rest of the world works. Take out the rails, and everything will have to move over the highways.

After the Ray Brook hearing, I stayed overnight at the Hotel Saranac. It’s an incredible restoration and a great hotel. I walked around the neighborhood the next day. There are too many empty stores, too much competition from development sprawling along the highways between towns. You can see the Hotel Saranac from the train station. If you want people on the streets and in the shops again, restore passenger service, not just tourist rail.

Watch what happens when trains once again deliver visitors right into the towns on the line. Old Forge has seen this — it’s past time for the Tri-Lakes to get in on the action. This is about going back to rails as transportation. Trails can’t do this; rails can. They’re good for the economy and the environment. They broaden the tourism economy by adding choices. They offer something other places can’t match as attractions and as services.

Support Alternative 1: Keep the rails, build trails around them, and build on the rest of the things rails can do. May 7 is the deadline for comments: email slmp_comments@apa.ny.gov

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Larry Roth lives in Ravena and serves with the Adirondack Railway Preservation Society planning group and as media contact for the U&D Railway Revitalization Corporation in the Catskills. Both groups are nonprofit, and neither position is paid.