Onondaga Creekwalk

The Onondaga Creekwalk is a mostly paved, partly bricked, multi-use trail running 4.8 miles (7.7 km) in Syracuse, New York, which has so far seen more than three decades of planning, construction, and delays, starting in 1988.Other parts were built as compromises in the face of creekside obstacles, generally co-locating the trail with pre-existing street and sidewalk pavement, usually at a significant distance from the water.This was during the then-mayoral administration of Stephanie Miner, working with the Onondaga Historical Association (OHA), and a design class at Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA).Kiosk 4) The Original Washington Station and the related video talk about Syracuse's brief, personal interaction with New York Central railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt.There are structures in this area built to straddle the creek: 1) The city-owned Washington Street Parking Garage; and 2) The Syracuse Office Environments building, as conjoined with Creekwalk Commons.The "creek right" walkway is briefly carried above the splash zone for two large outflow pipes, which are county-owned outfall locations for the Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) problem suffered in Syracuse and many other cities.Kiosk 8) Remnants of Railroads and the video tie the rail spur formerly carried by this bridge with old manufacturers in the district, including the maker of the Bradley Forging Hammer.Just east of the trail as built in this area, the creekwalk was restrained from being routed directly along the well-treed, government-owned corridor to either side of Onondaga Creek, because adjoining privately held acreage ranked as the American Bag and Metal Company's listed Superfund site.More free trailhead parking, and the junction between the Onondaga Creekwalk and the combined stretch of Loop the Lake and Empire State trails, heading northwesterly at first alongside city streets.This was the spot into which the "spoils" were pumped, within a temporary system of dikes, allowing silt to slowly settle from the water, during two prior rounds of dredging the waterway for navigation, 1998-1999 and 2018-2019.At that time, Pyramid described a plan to get a longer trail started by building just that stretch running through Franklin Square from near Route 690's overpasses, downstream as far as Spencer Street.[5] That news was reported within the context of a large number of revelations from Pyramid and Syracuse's then mayoral administration of Thomas G. Young -- regarding development plans for the shopping mall project which became Destiny USA, and for the larger industrial district formerly known as Oil City and now dubbed Lakefront, including Franklin Square.[6] Pyramid fronted the money and supervised the work, which cost $1.68 million, and was ultimately to be paid for from payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT agreements) which the neighborhood's several various redevelopments were expected to make.In July 1993, ground was ceremoniously broken for a (for-the-time-being disconnected) stretch of 1,600 feet of creekwalk as part of development of park-style amenities at the then newly renamed Inner Harbor, a formerly unkempt area historically known as the Barge Canal Terminal.The early work was reported to cost $500,000 and to have been paid for out of settlement monies from the Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. over a state environmental pollution case involving Onondaga Lake.In Fall 2018, the northernmost end of the trail -- being that portion running under the double-tracked CSX mainline and terminating at a viewing area for Onondaga Lake -- was announced as closed indefinitely due to ice and waves having eroded the pavement.[10][13] The creekwalk's as-yet unbuilt Phase 3 seeks to bring the trail all the way south to Dorwin Avenue in Syracuse's "Valley" neighborhood, close to the city's southerly corporate line, and further upstream along the path of Onondaga Creek.From the Hunt and Rockland avenues location, where Phase 2 ends with trailhead parking, there are another 1.3 miles of walkable or rideable, low or restricted traffic, mostly park-style roadways headed south.Further upstream, the greenway along the channelized Onondaga Creek already exists as mowed grass along flood control dikes to either side, though much of it is fenced off, discouraging public access.