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NEW YORK
‘Old Put’ Gets
New Life
Growing up in suburban Westchester
County in the 1940s and 1950s, Simone
Crockett can remember hearing trains
going to and from New York City on the
Putnam Division rail line, part of the
New York Central Railroad.
Now Crockett, a retiree living in
Manhattan’s Upper East Side, regularly
cycles on rail-trails out to her childhood
home north of the city for exercise and
relaxation. This daylong trip recently got
much easier after the completion of the
last unimproved section of the South
County Trailway, part of a rail-trail sys-
tem running along much of the length
of the “Old Put.”
“There was one area of the trail where
it came to a detour, and there were a
couple miles of tough cycling or bush-
whacking,” she says. “Now that section
is paved—they’ve done a beautiful job.
It means for an old lady like myself, I’m
not expending energy on a detour. The
rail-trail is just perfect for me now.”
From 1881 to 1958, the “Old Put”
carried commuters and freight on the
north-south route between the Bronx and
the city of Brewster in Putnam County,
a journey of about 50 miles. Freight
trains continued to run on portions of
the line until 1982. A few years later, the
Westchester County government (with
the help of state and federal funding)
began turning the 36 miles of the Putnam
line within its jurisdiction into rail-trails.
The largest section of the transformed
rail corridor, the North County Trailway,
runs 22 miles between Elmsford and the
Putnam County border—where it joins
with the Putnam Trailway, traveling to
Brewster. The shorter South County
Trailway runs from the north side of Van
Cortlandt Park, on the border between
the Bronx and Westchester County, up
to Elmsford.
The southern trail had been built
in pieces and gradually extended and
improved over the years until only a
two-mile gap in Yonkers remained. This
gap forced cyclists and walkers on the
popular trail to take a long, hilly detour
on busy roads—or to blaze their way
through woods and over streams to
rejoin the trail.
In the fall of 2010, construction crews
started to pave this gap, build retaining
walls and culverts, place landscaping and
fences, and make other improvements.
The work was completed in late October,
at a cost of about $3.2 million.
“It is the piece we’ve been wanting
to finish for a long, long time. It was
a missing link in an area that is very
heavily populated,” says Peter Tartaglia,
deputy commissioner of Westchester
County Parks. “So we’re relieved, we’re
happy, and we’re very proud.”
With a population of nearly 1
million, Westchester County has an
extensive system of parks and other
recreational facilities. The county’s trails
are the most popular of those amenities,
and the South County trail is one of the
most heavily used, Tartaglia says.
“You have this beautiful pathway
that goes through several different com-
munities, including the biggest city in
the county, Yonkers,” he says. “It brings
people back to nature right in their own
backyard.”
Crockett agrees, pointing out that
the wooded trail is so park-like that she’s
seen a hawk capture a snake from the
trail. “It’s an awesome trail—it’s just gor-
geous. This new section is the answer to
my dreams—no more bushwhacking!”
For more information on the
South County Trailway, visit
www.
westchestergov.com/Parks/Trails/
SouthCountyTrailway11.pdf
.
ALABAMA
The Greening
of Birmingham
Birmingham is notable for many
things—its industrial heritage, its history
as a railroad hub and its role in the civil
rights movement, among others—but
not for its embrace of active transpor-
tation. Quite the opposite: In 2010,
Bicycling
magazine named Birmingham
one of the worst cities in the country for
folks on two wheels.
But things are looking up in the
“Pittsburgh of the South.” Just 18
months ago, the city inaugurated
Railroad Park, a 19-acre green space
next to active train tracks downtown.
This award-winning new park provides
not only welcome space for recreation,
but also dedicated trails for cyclists and
pedestrians.
And more improvements are on the
way. Local nonprofit groups and govern-
ment agencies have teamed up on “Our
One Mile,” an initiative to encourage
biking and walking by creating more
than 100 miles of greenways in the city.
The program’s name comes from
an intensive effort to get suggestions
from city residents on places they’d
like to have paths, trails and parks.
Representatives from the Freshwater
Land Trust, the nonprofit leading the
program, spent 18 months soliciting
Birminghamians on where they wanted
greenways to be located.
“Thousands of people and 35 munici-
palities participated in stakeholder meet-
ings where we asked, ‘Where is your one
mile and what does it connect you to?’”
says Wendy Jackson, executive director
Eric Hvisc
A two-mile gap in the South County
Trailway was recently paved and
landscaped, much to the delight of users
of this popular suburban New York path.