Design charette more talk, than walk, due to Saturday’s rain
by Dan McClelland
A lengthy walk-through of the Tupper Lake train station site was abbreviated during Saturday’s planned design charette of what is expected to the community’s new and busy visitors’ hub because of steady rain that morning. Instead more time was spent on improvements planned there during an hour and half long public discussion of ideas for the place inside a very dry and comfortable community room in the village’s Emergency Services Building.
The event was organized by the town’s rail/trail task force which has been directed by Community Developer Melissa McManus these past three years to study improvements needed there when the railroad meets and rail/trail later this summer.
The first round of improvements will begin after a firm plan is done made possible by a $300,000 New York State Department of Conservation “Smart Growth” grant the town won this past year. Some of that money will go for the early improvements.
Hosting the Saturday morning session were Town Planner Jessica Eggsware, who is a member of the town task force and Jere Tatich, a landscape architect with the EDR consulting firm which has been hired by the town to develop the landscape on the Depot Street side of the historic station. EDR, based in Saratoga Springs, has done planning work for the village in its municipal park along Raquette Pond in recent years.
Opening the session attended by over a dozen interested residents that morning at 9a.m. Mrs. Eggsware said the focus of that morning’s discussion would be site design of the train station campus off Depot Street- work that will be funded by the $300,000 state grant.
She introduced Mr. Tatich, who she said represented “the team our committee and the town board chose for the site design step.”
She explained that although the initial plan was to leave the community room for the station at 9:30a.m., but because of the rain they had decided to stay put for most of morning with a brief station tour about 11:30 a.m.
Placed on the walls of the community room that morning were all the plans of the Department of Transportation’s transformation these past two years of the track area immediately west of the building, and including the long Y-shaped train turnaround that now just sits a few feet from LeBoeuf St. at its S curve.
On two easels were maps of a recent survey of the two-acre train station parcel prepared by Owen Littlefield’s surveying firm.
She said the purpose of the charette was to get as much public feedback as possible on improvements to best serve visitors, before final plans were set.
She introduced Mr. Tatich, who said his firm has been involved with several projects for both the town and village in recent years.
He said the wide range of railroad infrastructure work done by the DOT and by the general contractor, Bette & Cring on the track complex “is really looking great.” He called the dramatically re-shaped train station site a major community asset in the near future.
Representing the DOT that morning was Tom Maroun, one of the agency’s officials overseeing project.
“We’re going to primarily concentrate today what we are calling the ‘front yard’ of the train station,” where it abuts Depot Street.
“Everything on the track side is already spoken for (by the DOT) and that’s essentially cast in stone at this point and nearing completion!” he told the interested residents.
The two maps prepared by Mr. Littlefield’s firm had been colored by EDR to show two versions of what that front yard might look like.
“We started with some initial programming elements” including the routing of a snowmobile trail through the site and around the station, the main street crossing area, two different-sized parking lots and the connection to the Tupper Lake “Junction Pass” heritage trail.
He asked Leslie Karasin, a town task force member and the local representative of the Northern Forest Center, to review some tentative plans for “routing, parking and other traffic circulation” around the site.
She has been working closely since last year with Jessica and Melissa McManus “on the overall steering of this rail/trail readiness effort here.”
Her first map of the station site she called “a course map” of how the rail/trail users and the train visitors “will move around the site in the summertime,” but not for snowmobile traffic in the winter.
The site under development is serviced by Main, Oak, Depot and Washington streets and “it’s where everything will come together” in the tourist seasons of future years, she told the group that morning.
The map also showed the turnaround Y, where the engines and cars will be turned around for the return trip south, after passengers are off-loaded at the station’s new canopied trackside platforms.
She said Tom Maroun and his team “have built a sidewalk on the west side of the tracks” which permits train users to access the 100 foot plus long platform, east of the station and just behind the backstop on the Washington Street baseball diamond.
The sidewalk is concrete from Main Street to beyond the village playground area off Washington Street. From there it will be a crushed stone-surfaced trail to the terminus of the new rail/trail, adjacent to McCarthy Street and the large state-created parking lot across from it off Washington Street.
Ms. Karasin said that will be the way the rail/trail hiker and bikers will access the train station area and the various public amenities planned there.
“If you are a rail/trail user coming in from Lake Clear or Floodwood you will be routed around” the new train repair garage connected to the tracks on the unpaved trail and will connect to the concrete part of the sidewalk at the edge of the Washington St. park.
Not shown on that map, was a new crossing to permit site users to cross the double set of new tracks just east of the station and next to the larger canopied platform area, she noted.
“So this map is about entering and exiting and moving around the site- and its sort of complicated right now because there is a lot that will be going on there!”
Next Stop! Tupper Lake Chairman Dan McClelland told her that new walk finished late last fall “is wide and wonderful!”
He said it was a vast improvement over a earlier proposal to direct rail/trail users across a wooded area to the unpaved Hebert Lane to the S curve on LeBoeuf Street. Two years ago then village mayor, Paul Maroun, Town Supervisor Rickey Dattola, Leslie and Melissa, Business Group Member Mark Moeller, Mr. McClelland, ROOST’s Michelle Clement and several other locals met several times with Ken Bibbens, who heads the DOT’s railroad division and several other state officials. The local group cited the danger of the original proposed trail from the terminus and lobbied for a route alongside the tracks, which eventually become part of the current project.
Ms. Karasin said the map showed some of the ample parking now built or being proposed on and around the train station parcel.
“As you all know the state Department of Environmental Conservation (which built and will oversee the entire rail/trail between here and Lake Placid) has developed a huge parking area off Washington Street (near the road to Little Wolf Beach) with about 184 parking spaces.”
“That is the DEC’s contribution to the parking effort,” she said she thought. “We have a new rail/trail and this is where our users here will park,” she said of the agency’s intention there.
She admitted the control of the overall site “is somewhat complicated,” given the DEC’s development of the rail/trail and its new terminus here and the dramatic infrastructure improvements beside and beyond the train station nearly finished by the DOT, as part of its ongoing ownership of the rail line between here and Utica.
The end of the DEC’s jurisdiction is the rail/trail terminus adjacent to the large parking lot.
She moved on to the development of a new parking lot proposed by the DOT adjoining the village park and playground on where there is currently pavement. Not included in that new lot will be the staging area off Washington Street and next to it that Bette & Cring has used as its staging area during the construction period.
“Roughly 39 new parking spaces are planned there,” she told the group, showing where the new lot is on her map.
Mrs. Karasin said that she believes that’s one of the parking places that people boarding the Adirondack Railroad trains from Tupper south will park their vehicles. From that lot they will access the concrete sidewalk, travel down it to the track crossing on the train station side of the bigger platform and come into the train station.
She noted too that some of the maps on the wall that day were created by Architect Andrew Chary for the purpose of that day’s discussion. Mr. Chary is a member of the Tupper Lake Planning Board.
She said he also used parking software to determine how much street-side parking was possible on adjacent village streets like Oak, Depot and Pine. There are many opportunities for parking along those streets, Mr. Chary found, she said.
Mr. Maroun noted that the new trail his agency is currently building from the concrete sidewalk in place and around the garage to the rail/trail terminus will connect that place to the new parking lot near the playground and then to the station area itself.
Mr. Tatich pointed to another map on the wall that showed the future movement around the entire area. He said some of that work was the subject of a Junction Connectivity Study completed by his firm through Ms. McManus and the village in 2022.
“We looked at pedestrian and traffic routing all through that area” of the Junction.
He said that original work showed how the Washington Street parking lot next to the playground “was of such size it would accommodate a lot of parking.”
It was noted in the discussion that the entire corridor of property between the railroad tracks and Washington Street, including the village playground and ball field, the new parking plan envisioned, the ample space beyond that is heavily treed, to the new parking lot adjacent to the rail/trail terminus is owned by the state DOT, as part of its decades-old railroad right of way.
Andrew Chary wondered if the open area beyond where the new lot is proposed would be available to the town to increase the size of that lot. Ms. Eggsware told him “it is not available to the town at this time.”
Returning to a focus on the “front yard” of the station, Mr. Tatich explained that the two survey maps show two different-sized parking lots to the east side of the station campus.
He said the idea for the two overviews of amenities on the two maps “was to generate conversation that morning.”
He noted he had toured the site on Friday afternoon with some town and village elected officials, and with the town planner and Kelly and Reese Fleury of the Tupper Lake Snowmobile Club, who also serve on the town task force.
“I learned a lot more yesterday, particularly about the snowmobile use of the site and how that is so key” to improving tourism here each winter, he told the group.
“The discussion that morning would focus on the site parking, walkways, landscaping...everything, he said in answer to a question from Dan King, an artistic blacksmith.
Mr. King wondered “if there has been any outdoor art suggested” for the depot site.
Jessica Eggsware said as part of the grant process, they are putting out a request for proposals from artists that should be released this week.
“There is money in the grant for specific structures, sculpture-style art work and there is at least one ten by ten foot area designated area” exclusively designated for art work, she told him.
She said, however, it will be the last piece of the project that will be advanced after all the landscaping work is done.
Mr. Tatich said the two identical survey maps, after his placements of possible improvements were site, show common elements like public access to the site.
“Coming into the site what was really key was pedestrian connections- given the many passengers expected to be coming off the train and others coming via the rail/trail,” he began.
The new sidewalk from Main Street to the end of the playground is a main pedestrian connection, he told the group.
The track crossing platform is another piece of the pedestrian movement plan, he added.
Walker and cyclists will also come to the site via the Junction Pass heritage trail which connects the uptown and downtown sections of Tupper Lake with lots to learn about local history along it.
One of the maps showed a parking lot to accommodate 22 vehicles with a green area between it and the tracks. The other map he colored in was larger in size to accommodate 29 or so vehicles and its edge was closer to the tracks without the strip of landscaping.
In both cases the snowmobile route through the parcel was the same. It will run along where the old railroad spur was removed along the property line with the Lumberjack Inn parcel in recent weeks and then sweep back to the track area and run along it on the south side to the rail/trail terminus.
“We had some good dialogue about the snowmobile trail needed there on Friday,” he said of that earlier discussion.
Jenn King had a question. “With the perspective on pedestrians and taking into account the smaller parking lot at the station versus the DEC’s much larger down farther (at the rail/trail terminus), people looking for parking will first be driving into the station area but then realize they have to leave and find the larger ones. Is that movement being considered in terms of pedestrian safety? -And what is the ratio of vehicles to pedestrians expected to be?”
Mr. Tatich called hers a very good point that was also raised in the conversations with local leaders Friday. The question, he said, was “How do you orient arriving people, without confusing them?”
“How do you direct them to the larger parking lots?” Mrs. King asked him.
Mr. Tatich said that hasn’t been studied yet in the plan to be developed, but said it would be, noting it could be tackled, perhaps, in good directional signs at or around the station site.
She asked if anyone knew the number of people who rode the train and the Next Stop! Tupper Lake chairman told her he had been told by Adirondack Railroad Preservation Society leaders the passengers for the season surpassed the 4,000 mark.
“We are talking about new way-finding signs around that neighborhood” to help direct visitors, Town Planner Eggsware told her.
Mr. Tatich said it was his opinion that the smaller parking lot envisioned right next to the station “won’t impact traffic around the station” primarily because of its relatively small size.
Mrs. King wondered if the lot next to the station could be used to accommodate vehicles of handicapped visitors, while the larger lots could be used for regular drivers and perhaps with small shuttle buses connecting the three lots.
Ms. Eggsware said her idea had been talked about in task force discussions. She said the walk from the rail/trail terminus, the large parking lot adjacent to it and the new one proposed adjacent to the playground is less than five minutes.
“Most of the train passengers will come by train not private vehicles, so they won’t impact” the rail/ trail parking or the new one proposed by his agency next to the playground, noted Tom Maroun.
Michelle Clement of ROOST said parking is needed for the local and area people who come to Tupper Lake to take the ride to Sabattis and back each day the train is in town. Those short excursions have been popular in recent years.
Mr. Maroun said many of those people would likely now park on the new Washington St. lot near the playground as it is just a short walk on the sidewalk to the larger platform where they would board the train for the trip south.
“Will overnight parking be allowed?” Dan King asked.
It was noted that shouldn’t be a problem because right now ARPS is not planning a trip north one day and the return trip the next day in what would be a two-day excursion.
Members of the Tupper Lake Business Group have in recent years asked ARPS leaders to consider the two-day, overnight visit for its passenger, to increase the tourism impact here.
ARPS is also planning to resume its railbike rental operations several days each week this summer, Mr. McClelland told the group. Those rail bike riders would likely park in the parking lot adjacent to the station, he figured.
Jenn King also wondered if the parking lot at the station site might also be better used for van parking or van use when people are shuttled to and from the train station site.
“-Or it could be an interactive area to give children things to do...maybe a hands-on activity place for kids?” She thought too maybe the Wild Center could have a small area to host activities or to use to encourage people to visit the natural history museum during their hours in Tupper Lake on train days.
Mr. Tatich said it is important for visitors to know where they can park when they arrive here and so good signage is critical. He said the best locations for any of the needed signs is still to be worked out.
“I think when I return with revisions to these maps, we’ll probably have two: one that focuses on parking and one that focuses on handicapped parking.” He said it may be that the small lot eyed near the station might be what he called “flex spacing,” instead to accommodate different functions right next to the train station. A turf grass type of surface might open up different ways to use that important space, he thought.
“The number one question from visitors I met last summer was: ‘what are my kids going to do?’” Mrs. King told the group that morning. She said passengers told her “they weren’t going to take their kids to a local bar...we don’t want to eat, what are we going to do?’”
Kelly Fleury asked if the new Washington Street parking lot will be handicapped accessible and Tom Maroun said it would be.
Town Councilman Rick Donah wondered who owned the circle at the end of Webb Row and Mrs. Eggsware said it is owned by the town and used for a snowplow turnaround in the winter months. It will also be another way into the train station site.
The train station parcel also extends beyond Webb Row, to land behind some of the houses there, it was noted. That might someday be used for more parking.
The councilman also asked about the “red box” on the maps which indicated a bathroom facility on the eastern edge of the tract. Mrs. Eggsware said that is space set aside for a restroom facility to be added in the future.
“-And how big would it be?” the elected officials asked.
“The way it is is drawn right now, it would be 18 feet by 30 feet,” Mr. Tatich told him.
Mrs. Eggsware said it was situated there on the map because of the close proximity of village water and sewer infrastructure.
It would also be right next the proposed sled trail and the pedestrian bridge crossing the tracks.
“As someone who has plunged those train station toilets more than once, it is critically important to have that secondary restroom building on the site, the train station’s Dan McClelland told the group.
He said a building that could be heated and open 24 hours a day would be the best answer, given the often late-night snowmobile traffic through the Junction.
“The train station restrooms (three toilets in both the men’s and women’s) won’t accommodate the traffic that this new visitors’ hub is expected to see!” he asserted.
He said no matter how it is accomplished, whether through our local governments, or by civic groups or through a grant, that extra restroom building needs to be there.
Michelle Clement wondered if in the near future temporary port-a-jons might suffice.
“That’s possible,” the town planner told her.
The DOT’s Tom Maroun was certain they could be a temporary answer. “All during the construction this winter, we had port-a-potties out there on the site and they were used 24/7 by the snowmobilers”
Sally Hart of Big Wolf Lake wondered if there could be more than one site on the grounds set aside to display art pieces, and Mr. Tatich told her there could be, saying there were already several planned.
Three or four red dots on the maps showed ten foot by ten foot spaces for future pieces of outdoor art.
That announcement peaked the interest of Dan King, who said he was taking note. He said he was recently commissioned by the Village of Saranac Lake to create a 60 foot, three level sculpture of mountains and such on a wall with back lighting. He said he was currently working on a ten-foot high metal sculpture for the Wild Center “and I’m also working on a piece for the lake of a giant May Fly.”
He said he was definitely interested in doing some type of artistic work for the train station site, admitting: “Tupper Lake really matters to me!”
He joked with the group that maybe his property at the site of the former Wheel Inn might find a good future use as home for “five floors of underground parking” with a restaurant on the main floor.
Mr. Tatich told the Kings that one of the decisions that needed to be made for improvements to the train station site would be “on preparations” like lighting and such for places there would be art placed.
Councilman Rick Donah asked when final decisions would be made on the type and size of parking next to the train station.
“After this meeting, Jere is going to go back to his offices and re-design the site lay-out and there will be another follow-up public meeting,” Jessica Eggsware told him.
Later in the meeting Mr. Tatich predicted the town would have an updated plan and new maps in coming months.
Mr. Donah asked Mr. Maroun if the front-yard work of the station would see DOT funding, and was told that part of the site’s improvement plan is the town’s responsibility.
The DOT engineer did note that his agency was planning to add gravel to the surface of the area next to the station tentatively earmarked for new parking.
Mrs. Eggsware said the DEC grant of $300,000 would pay for the site design of the area in front of the station, as well as some of the new installations planned there, but not for any new restroom.
“I’m under the impression that a restroom building that would accommodate the needs of 180 people per hour would cost at least $300,000- so we all know that has to be a future addition,” added Mr. Chary.
Mr. Tatich agreed with him.
At that point in the conversation, it was noted there are new village restrooms in the playground area off Washington which are open in the summer months.
“They are open in the day-time hours in the summer and are locked at night,” stated Village Code Enforcement Officer Pete Edwards. Mr. Edwards has been active on the two rail/trail promotion groups in recent years.
In answer to another question from Mr. Donah about the DOT’s improvements to the parking lot adjacent to the playground, Mr. Maroun said his agency is “redoing the surface” of most of the existing parking lot and adding new lighting.”
Mr. Donah wondered if the parking lot could be expanded by the village or town, and Mr. Maroun reminded him the property was owned by the state DOT, so its permission would be required first. The village apparently leases that space for the playground and ball field from the state agency, it was noted.
The improved parking lot off Washington would accommodate 39 vehicles, if it is improved the way the DOT plans.
Asked if the area currently used by Bette & Cring as its materials and machinery staging area could be used for additional parking and Mr. Maroun said again that too would be subject to an additional leasing arrangement between the community and the DOT.
The event moved from the emergency services building to the train station for its final half hour where Mr. Maroun escorted the dozen or so participants of a charette on a tour of some of the new amentities along the tracks the DOT and its contractors have installed, including the two impressive canopied platform areas.