New Castle Secures Major $5M State Grant to Start ChapLine
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The Town of New Castle has received a $5 million state grant that will enable the town to begin building a 1.7-mile trailway from near the grounds of Horace Greeley High School to downtown Chappaqua.
State Sen. Peter Harckham (D-Lewisboro) and Assemblyman Chris Burdick (D-Bedford) Tuesday evening joined the New Castle Town Board to announce the town had received the money from the Transportation Alternatives Program to build the ChapLine, which will allow pedestrians to walk from the area near Chappaqua Crossing to the hamlet’s downtown. The grant program is overseen by the state Department of Transportation (DOT).
Awarding of the grant comes about five years after studies began on building the connection and nearly a decade since the project was first raised during former supervisor Robert Greenstein’s administration.
Town Supervisor Victoria Tipp thanked the two state legislators along with many other government officials and the Chappaqua School District for collaborating on the project that will be built in at least two stages.
“This grant is really instrumental in creating a great pedestrian experience for our residents, for reducing our reliance on automobiles, reducing greenhouse gases,” Tipp said. “There’s a safety feature as well. There’s a path behind the high school, so we will now be able to monitor the path with lighting and allow our track and field athletes to have a safe place to run, and it will provide really great educational
opportunities with a bird sanctuary, which is now in the area, which is inaccessible.”
The grant requires a $1.25 million match from the town, and will be combined with a previously obtained $500,000 Climate Smart Communities grant, which the town has to match in full. Work will commence in the near future, first with surveyors marking the land followed by development of a preliminary design, Tipp said. There will also be an updated estimate for the project.
With more than half of the previously estimated $11 million expense for the work secured by the town, it is expected that the funds set aside will pay for roughly the first mile of the trailway, Burdick said.
Burdick explained that he and Harckham had to collaborate on writing legislation and getting it approved because it involved the swap of parkland for where a portion of the ChapLine will be built.
“I mention it just to highlight all of the complexities that projects like these have, and there have got to be a hundred that you’ve encountered in the course of getting to where you are now, and the point of which is to show the tremendous perseverance of your town administration, your Town Board and supervisor because you just have to keep at it,” Burdick said.
Harckham called the town nabbing the grant “a really incredible achievement” because New Castle had to compete with other municipalities across the state to receive the money.
He said the public will now benefit from everyone’s hard work.
“Since COVID, people have been really thirsting to be in our greenspaces, whether it’s in the Adirondack parks, or the Catskills or our local parks, you have a new greenspace, a new bird sanctuary to give residents,” Harckham said.
Tipp said the project will start with a sidewalk near the Chappaqua School District administration building off of Roaring Brook Road and will extend to a trailhead where a parking area will be built. The first mile of the ChapLine will go to near or just beyond the bird sanctuary.
Additional grant applications will be submitted in hopes of limiting the remainder of the expense to finish the project, Tipp said. When fully completed, the ChapLine will end near the Chappaqua train station.
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/
