An open house on the future of Interstate 787 is scheduled for this evening in downtown Albany.
Bryan Viggiani with the New York State Department of Transportation says the first-ever “open house” event to gather public opinion on reimagining the I-787 corridor through Downtown Albany will be held at MVP Arena at 4:30 p.m.
"We'll be there the entire three hour time and folks can drop in," Viggiani said. "And really this is their opportunity to come with their ideas. Tell us about 787, how it functions, how it doesn't function and what your ideas are. There'll be boards around the room. It's going to be held in the media room of MVP arena tonight. There'll be boards around the media room where you can come add your ideas on sticky notes to the boards there, but really we're there to listen."
787 runs along the Hudson River, cutting off several Capital Region downtowns from the waterfront. Viggiani says the state-funded planning and environmental study represents a key step in the process of potentially altering the highway’s layout and design and improving pedestrian access.
109th district Democratic state Assemblymember Pat Fahy has led a decade-long crusade, dating back to when she first took office, to reclaim the waterfront and reconnect communities with the Hudson River.
“As somebody who was from Chicago, it was stunning to see a city of 99,000 have such massive spaghetti loops of highways, and dozens of ramps, and more, and then reading the history," said Fahy. "So I began to think that you can reimagine it. I was really studying some things that were going on in other states and cities. And, you know, just thought, we can do better you can convert some of this, this is such an underused highway, especially the access roads, and a number of the ramps. So the more I began to look into it, I think I wrote my first opinion piece on this in2019, before the pandemic, and said, we need to really reevaluate because I've also studied so much about the Hudson River, and it is the mighty Hudson, it is the single greatest natural resource in Albany in the Capital Region. And we've cut ourselves off from that river with the highway.”
Fahy says the state now has funding to evaluate proposals to reimagine 787 both from an engineering and a cost standpoint.
"Getting the $5 million in the 2022 state budget was what I consider probably my proudest local achievement," Fahy said. "I'm really thrilled. We have we spent years advocating for this and thrilled to see that it is finally now being seriously evaluated. And as I've written in some of my op ed pieces, I think there's many ways to go at this short term and long term. While we're figuring out what ramps and access roads can be there taken down or converted along with pieces of the highway, we can also go over it with a land bridge similar to what they're doing in Buffalo, similar to what they're doing in the Bronx, where you literally go over with green space, go over a highway. Or go under it, where the original lock one was for the Erie Canal."
While DOT figures out what to do with 787, Fahy says she'd rather not spend a decade or two coming up with a plan of action.
"I don't want to be talking about a design five years from now," said Fahy. "I want to see us go after this, have some short term designs and really aggressively seek some of the federal money. There have been billions that have now been designated for these efforts at the federal level as a result of Highway to Boulevard funding that were expanded actually with the COVID money. It was part of the, I think it's the inflation Reduction Act. So the funding has been there. We need to aggressively seek it at the federal level."
Members of the Albany Riverfront Collaborative will be on-hand for the open house. The group represents some business owners, nonprofits, community advocates, professional associations and others; it's goal is the eventual creation of an equitable, sustainable, beautiful forever-vision for Albany’s waterfront. Again, Viggiani.
"This is not just on Albany 787, this study covers from basically Exit 2 up to Route 7 in Green Island," said Viggiani. "So obviously though the meeting is being held downtown Albany we're certainly hope folks come from Menands, from Watervliet, from Green Island and obviously from Albany."
Viggiani says a new website 787.dot.ny.gov has been launched to provide updates on the project. He adds the study will expand on the I-787 Hudson Waterfront Study that was completed in 2018 by the Capital District Transportation Committee.
