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Our Mission
 The mission of the Guilderland Pathways Committee is to create a comprehensive plan for sidewalks and non-motorized recreational paths throughout the Town of Guilderland and to promote safe, non-motorized transportation in the Town of Guilderland for both commuting and recreational purposes.
In its mission, the GPC is responding both to community input and to national health policy. The Director of the Center for Disease Control’s Center for Environmental Health, Richard J. Jackson, M. D., wrote recently, "There is a connection…between the fact that the urban sprawl we live with daily makes no room for sidewalks or bike paths and the fact that we are an overweight, heart disease-ridden society."
The GPC is well along in the process of developing comprehensive plans for both sidewalks and recreational trails in the Town. One major objective of these plans is to connect neighborhoods with amenities-parks, shopping, library, schools, the YMCA, natural areas-by bicycle and footpaths.
The Pathways Committee has a daunting task to try to retrofit the Town to become friendly to pedestrians and bicyclists. The most obvious deficiencies are:
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Three of Guilderland’s elementary schools and its main Town Park are almost completely inaccessible except by bus or car. |
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The town has major residential neighborhoods (e.g. Westlawn, Willow Street, Williamsburg, Kennewyck/Vale, Covington Woods) that have no safe pedestrian or bicycle access to shopping or recreational facilities. |
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The town’s sidewalk system is a patchwork of disconnected sidewalk fragments, many built by businesses along Carman Road and Western Avenue that are underused because they go nowhere. |
Prospice Gelria "Look forward Guilderland" |
The Town has begun to make progress.
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The Town Board accepted the GPC’s recommendation to allocate money in the Town's 2001 budget to connect sidewalks on Western Avenue between Gipp Road and Crossgates Mall Road, and has included money for additional sidewalk construction in the 2002 budget. These are the first investments by the Town in sidewalks since the mid-1980’s. |
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The McKownville Planning Study, initiated by the Pathways Committee, has begun. That study should position the Town to act on pedestrian, bicycle, access and streetscape deficiencies in that hamlet. |
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A draft of a comprehensive sidewalk ordinance has been submitted to the Town Board. |
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The Town staff now solicits input from the GPC on sidewalks and paths in new development applications very early in the Town’s review process. |
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And, at this writing, the Town and County seem poised to restore the French’s Mill Bridge for pedestrian and bicycle use. |
But there is much, much more to be done.
The Pathways Committee invites input and support from Town residents, particularly in identifying areas of the Town where sidewalks, paths or bicycle shoulders are needed, or where crossing any of the Town’s major highways is important but unsafe. Please contact us by email by clicking on here: Guilderland Pathways Committee or come to one of our meetings.
The path over the culvert across the Hunger Kill
that will connect the soccer fields
at DiCaprio Park with Lone Pine Park.
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