Remaining funding comes through for Voorheesville Quiet Zone
Enterprise file photo — Melissa Hale-Spencer
All funding has finally been lined up to install a four-quadrant quiet-zone gate system at CSX’s Main Street crossing in Voorheesville, pictured here, and at the freight carrier’s Voorheesville Avenue crossing.
VOORHEESVILLE — All that’s left is a ceremonial groundbreaking.
During its Nov. 12 meeting, the Albany County Legislature approved resolutions to enter into funding and construction agreements with the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York and CSX, respectively, for the installation of four-quadrant quiet-zone gate systems at Voorheesville’s Main Street and Voorheesville Avenue railroad crossings.
The installation of the gates, which has an estimated cost of $289,000, means engineers will no longer have to blow their horns as they approach and travel over the two crossings.
The project will be paid for with two DASNY grants, one which was secured long ago by then-Senator George Amedore and the other — $80,000 through Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy — that has held up the project for years.
It took so long to wrench the $80,000 from DASNY because the type of funding, a State and Municipal Facilities Program (SAM) grant, requires the recipient to own the local project being funded — in this case, the gate system, which CSX typically owns and operates.
Over the years, multiple attempts were made to answer the ownership question posed by the Dormitory Authority.
In 2021, CSX “seemed agreeable” to the county owning the gates and the freight company maintaining them, Mayor Rich Straut said at the time, but nothing had been formalized. Then, there was the thought that some kind of long-term lease between the county and CSX would satisfy the ownership stipulation but that didn’t satisfy the Dormitory Authority either.
In December 2023, the village made the argument that the Quiet Zone could qualify as an “environmental project” under the SAM Grant guidelines, given that noise impact is a recognized environmental concern.
In August of this year, Straut said that the state bought the argument.
“They were all very skeptical about it, but said, ‘You know what?’ We’ll run this up the flagpole. We’ll run it by DEC,’” Straut recounted at the time, to which the Department of Environmental Conservation replied, “‘Yes, it’s an environmental project,’ which basically broke the roadblock.”
