Connectivity...
Improving Rural Communities Connections Through Sustainable Transportation.
Introduction:
Communities the size of the town of Windham (populations under 3000 people, and land areas under 100 sq. miles) have often been seen as being too sparsely populated or diffused to effectively benefit from the use of connected street design. Street’s designed “complete streets” offer all ages , mobility requirements, and many modes of transports to safely allow members of the communities to traverse a town or city. These requirements include the following: safe sidewalks, pedestrian crossing, bike lanes, and reduced traffic speeds in certain areas. Features often not found in rural planning due to the population sizes in relationship to the overall geographical size of the community. These features tend to be found in more dense urban or suburban type communities.
However, in recent years the concept of smart growth in rural communities has led to a resurgence of the walkable Main Street. Another aspect of this concept of the smart growth planning rural communities is creating a viable mixed-use properties on the Main Street. These mixed-use properties combine the commercial, residential, institutional , possibly some minimal industrial applications, and finally governmental. These types of planning strategies benefit from the proximity of the consumers and workforce in these densely packaged communities that allow for easy access with minimal expense to all the required necessities of everyday life. In these densely packed main streets people meander through the locality driving the local commerce in the community. Examples in our local vicinity are the towns of Rhinebeck, NY Duchess County and the Town of Woodstock, NY Ulster County—both of which have benefitted immensely from their walkable Main Street economically speaking. While Windham’s Main Street is becoming less accessible to cyclists and walkers with fewer activities to draw people to our Main Street.
Given these facts “ The Mountain Top Issues Coalition” is beginning the development phase of a study to explore in the future of sustainable connectivity in the town of Windham and the greater Mountain Top Region of Greene County NY.
Goals:
The goals of this study are to do the following:
Develop a plan of action for the Town of Windham (then expand it to other local communities) to develop greater connections between the Main Street , local areas of interest , and the general population through sustainable means such as cycling and walking.
Outline the areas of economic impact on the community these types of improvements will create.
Outline the potential sources of funding for such a long term development program
Implement this program with future community partners.
Increase the town’s resilience against potential ecological changes in our tourism based economy.
Developing The Action Plan For Windham:
The focus of the initial program will be to study the viability of increasing non-motorized use of the roads and connectivity of the following streets in Windham, NY: Main Street ( State Route 23), South Street (County Route 12) , Route 296 (Main Street, Hamlet of Hensonville), Brooksburg Road (County Route 65) , Seely Road ( Count Route 65A), Maplecrest Road (County Route 40), and Big Hollow Road (County Route 56, Main Street hamlet of Maplecrest). We’ve chosen the most effective routes of connecting the three primary locations in our community: the hamlet of Maplecrest, the hamlet of Hensonville, and the hamlet of Windham with non-motorized transport.
Our primary focus is to increase two modes of transportation within the greater community of Windham, NY: a) cycling between the hamlets and b) side-walks within the hamlet’s main streets. We feel this strategy of increasing the mobility of cyclists between the hamlets in the town of Windham will increase both the tourism aspects of community’s economy and the retail based consumerism. Windham, is lucky enough to be home to a geography that lends itself to a variety of cycling experiences: leisurely road based cycling via New York State Routes 23 and 296 that can be used to explore both local hamlets within the town and other towns (such as Ashland, Lexington, Prattsville, Hunter and Tannersville) and then trail riding that includes locations like the Elm Ridge Trail System to more gentle locations like the Windham Path.
The goal of this plan is to create a focal point of active transportation in the community that helps to grow the main streets of our local hamlets.The revitalization of our main streets from merely being locations of just restaurants and small retail is also primary goal of this project. We hope to see a true mixed-use Main Street again with spaces that develop long term economic growth in the community using sustainable means. By developing a greater inter-connectivity to each through a series of improved sidewalks and bicycle lanes the main streets of Hamlets like Hensonville, Windham, and even Maplecrest will see a rebirth of human interactions on all levels.
Methodology:
Phase I: Publish our initial proposal by mid-December, 2024.
Phase II: Develop a public survey of the community to understand the limitations and expectations of the community.
Phase III: Create a “Review Committee” of local stakeholders to review the research on the development of this project presented in the initial proposal and the responses generated by the community from the survey.
Phase IV: Finalize the proposal including the funding strategy and present to the community and local stakeholders.
Phase VI: Begin the process of lobbying state and local governments to achieve these goals in the next 3-5 years.
Conclusion:
Windham and many of the communities in the Mountain Top Region of Greene County have been suffering from a fundamental paradigm shift in the sources of revenue. Part of this is shift has been to a service based economy that supports the tourism business. The other part of this shift has been due to the demographic shift of home owners being primarily in the 45-65+ plus demographic group. The two largest segments of the population in Windham currently (but, a trend that is also happening across the Mountain Top Region as well). These trends have lead to the creation of a massive disparity between to the local full-time population and the second home owners— a group that represents just around 2/3rds of the total home owners in our community.
Much of the growth in our community and in Greene County as a whole at present has been driven by second home-owners and the tourism they represent. The fact that the Windham Mountain Club is in the process of reducing total tourist activities avialable with complete privatization of the Windham Country Club and the ending of the Mountian Biking on the Ski Slop will with out a dobut cause a drop in the total revenue generate with in the Town of WIndham. Therefore, Windham and other towns in the region have to build a new kind of tourism that is accessible to a broader cross section of the population and increases their propensity to spend money and time within the community. This can be achieved with increased connectivity of our hamlets and trail systems with cycling lanes.