Communities in the Hudson Valley deserve accessible, reliable and affordable transportation choices, not a wider Route 17. The New York State Department of Transportation along with Governor Hochul's administration are proposing a $1.4 billion expansion project that could widen 30 miles of Route 17 in Sullivan and Orange County. Expanding Route 17 would increase air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, burden taxpayers and worsen traffic overtime. Additionally, spending $1.4 billion to widen 30 miles of highway primarily benefits corporate interests while leaving our communities, especially those without access to a car, in the dust. Instead of wasting precious resources on an unnecessary, harmful highway widening, we are urging our elected officials to:

1. Halt all plans for widening State Route 17;
2. Invest resources into a fix-it-first approach that prioritizes the backlog of local maintenance and infrastructure projects throughout the region by transferring the funding to local control;
3. Develop a regional transportation plan for communities along the corridor that aligns with New York State’s climate laws and creates greater access to affordable and reliable multi-modal transportation while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and co-pollutants in disadvantaged communities.

Prioritize Communities Over Corporations:

Big warehouse corporations keep pushing transportation spending on a few big highways for their truck traffic and their own corporate profit, but that doesn’t do much for communities in the Hudson Valley. The way we benefit neighborhoods and local businesses is by investing in better public transit and safer roads where they matter most, not by expanding a highway that creates more traffic through rather than into our towns and main streets. Increasing public transit, fixing dangerous potholes, and adding safe biking lanes and sidewalks will enable more people to get where they need to go, whether it’s school, work, the grocery store or health care appointments. Unnecessarily expanding highways to bring more truck traffic through our region will only serve corporations that want to build warehouses along Route 17, polluting our air and creating worse traffic over time.

Fix Existing Roads Before Building New Lanes:

Now more than ever, with chaos and unpredictability defining the current federal landscape, spending $1.4 billion to unnecessarily widen the highway is a waste of precious resources. The price tag of this proposed project has grown over the past year to an estimated $1.4 billion dollars (up from $1 billion dollars) and that cost assumes that at least half of this project will be supported by federal funds. Additionally, this project would address only 30 miles of highway in the Hudson Valley/Catskills region, where 60% of roadways are currently in poor condition. With a backlog of needed maintenance and infrastructure upgrades, adding capacity along Route 17 would not only waste funding that could be better spent in the region, but it would also further burden taxpayers and we are already frustrated with the quality of the roads we use to get to school, work, healthcare and shopping centers every day. 

Giving Residents a Choice to Get Around:

It is time to stop sinking billions of dollars into widening highways that benefit corporate interests, and instead invest in regional transportation planning that gets residents where they want to go. Whether we are in rural, urban or suburban communities, upstate or downstate, our communities deserve safe, reliable and affordable transportation choices that get us to main street, doctor’s appointments, school, work, and additional opportunities. It is incredibly limiting that NYSDOT only considers transportation projects along narrow highway corridors rather than taking a regional approach. Our communities will save time and money if more transportation options are available to choose from.