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Interstate 87: The Adirondack NorthwayAdirondackNorthway.net : AdkI87.comThe Fastest Site of NYRoutes.com from February, 2005 From US 20 in Albany, NY to Quebec, Canada Also, the Adk High Peaks and Lakes Placid & Champlain |
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My attitude towards the Adirondack Park is that it was and is a great concept and has been part of New York State for over a century. But the Adirondack Parks Agency can loosen up a bit and give people more leeway. For instance, the cell phone tower controversy. But anyone can see that cellular phones involve next to no pollution or environmental damage versus cutting telephone poles, making wire cable and laying lines and maintaining them in this harsh climate. Also, as a person who does no power sports, we can open up some more of the park to them, providing that they are all 4 stroke clean burning quiet machines and they behave themselves. But the power sport crowd has to clean up its act. Try spending some time in Old Forge where sledders go by on noisy 2 stroke machines all through the night, especially at the Fastrac for gas.
As far as my outdoors ethos goes, I disagree with the "leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but pictures" purist line. Building fires, hunting, fishing and other old fashioned stuff like that is cool if done right, "keep it clean for the next guy" way. Every tree and little critter are not sacred. But I don't condone wanton destruction and cutting. But I am careful and try to consume as little gas, oil and other bad stuff as possible. Waste is a sin, but that doesn't make me a Luddite either, I like sound technology and that is the key, like cell phones vs. landlines in the woods. But I can see why some people hate cell phones that intrude everywhere.
Also, they can loosen up on some of the development restrictions: when huge places can get built in Placid yet some little place in the middle gets hasseled when they want to put a new roof on their inn. I'm all for the new Tupper Lake Ski Bowl and Gore project, they can use some more winter traffic there and skiing is good. It would be great is some good cross park cross country ski routes were laid down. I'd love to see the hut to hut ski concept take here. On an opposing note, let them put in some box stores in the old suburban strip on Demars Blvd., NY 3 in Tupper. Instead of people travelling to Plattsburgh, Watertown or Glens Falls for shopping, they can drive only a couple miles. That would free up a lot of road space and provide some more jobs.
If the state and the Adirondack Railroad want to keep the line open, they should invest into making it a first class line so they can make some money running more freight, especially truck trailers. That could get some heavy trucks off the road. Even in the heyday of railroads, the money was always in freight. New York State has very high property taxes on railroad grades, making the railroads abandoned marginal lines too quickly. We can thank New York State in general for making upstate NY, Adk Park or not, poor. In return, the state builds prisons to "boost" the local economy by using Upstate New York as a dumping ground for all their rejects. Build high rise prisons in New York City and the prisoners' visitors can take the subway. The whole nanny state's social welfare establishment farms out most of their cases to upstate New York. New York State needs less socialism and regulations; they are killing us up here. Maybe, they can loosen regs and boost mining and logging to rebuild the backbone of the indigenous economy. Here, decent rail lines can only help. But I would hold those industries to the same enviro standards as before, unless it is a really bonehead reg. Rather have a couple more mines re-activated, that would help keep the lines open, than more condo development in North Creek or Placid.
If you really want to know, technically I am a flatlander. I was born and raised in Hartford, Connecticut, but lived in upstate NY most of my life from fifteen on. But I always had a country, dirt feel. Woods, lakes ponds made me feel right at home. When I was a kid, about 8, we rented a cottage on Lake Champlain at Point Au Roche in 1967, when the Adirondack Northway was completed to Canada. we used the Northway to PQ 15 to get to Expo 1967 in Montreal, that was way cool for a kid. I loved the whole place, including the rest areas, Ausable Chasm, Lake Placid, Keene Valley and of course big old Lake Champlain.