County officials are planning to redesign a section of a rail trail in Midtown Kingston and they’re seeking the public’s help. On Tuesday, May 13 from 5-7 p.m., project designers will be at the Broadway Bubble laundromat to get input from city residents on what they would like to see happen with the former Cornell Street railyard.

The Midtown Linear Park, which is owned by Ulster County, opened in 2018. The multi-use path runs from Cornell Street to Kingston Plaza and provides a link between Midtown and Uptown Kingston for users of nonmotorized transportation. The trail also forms part of the Kingston Greenline, a network of walking and biking paths running through the city and beyond.

The proposed redesign project will cover a two-block stretch of the trail between Cornell and Downs streets. The space formerly served as a railyard and terminus for the Catskill Mountain Railroad. Up to 65 feet wide in spots, the old railyard is significantly wider than the rest of the trail, which organizers of the redesign say makes it ideal for a more park-like setting with amenities for special events. Original plans for the linear park called for more development of the space, but funding ran short. Now, the county’s Planning Department is giving it another shot starting with the design project.

“We would like to see even more use of the space, make it safer and more welcoming,” said Deputy Director of Planning Kristen Wilson. “It’s one of the few green spaces in Midtown so we would like to see it be the best space that it could be for Midtown residents.”

Wilson said the project also sought to address quality-of-life issues in the linear park. Well before its conversion to a walking and biking path, the old railroad cut served as a gathering spot for drug addicts. Since the conversion, county officials have dealt with persistent drug activity in the park which at one point emerged as a major hotspot for opioid overdoses. A task force convened to address the issue led to a number of changes, including surveillance cameras along the trail, added police presence and regular visits by the Ulster County Sheriff’s Office’s anti-drug outreach team ORACLE. Wilson said she hopes bringing more activity and events to the former railyard would further help address the issue.

“Part of making a space safer is activating it,” said Wilson. “You want to bring more people into that space because the folks who are doing things that make people feel unsafe don’t necessarily want to do it when there’s a crowd of people there.”

The county contracted with PORT, a Philadelphia-based landscape architecture and urban design firm, to come up with a plan for the old railyard. They also brought on board KaN, a Kingston-based landscape design firm that designed the recently opened Post Office Park at the intersection of Broadway and Grand Street. As with that project, KaN is working to get a sense from the public what they would and would not like to see in the redesigned space. The public outreach effort will also incorporate the efforts of the YMCA Farm Project, a youth group that worked with KaN on the Post Office Park design.

“This is for the community, so we want to bring the community in to find out what they foresee for this space,” said KaN principal Karine Duteil. “So at this point we are trying to keep things as open-ended as we can.”

The public outreach effort includes an online survey available at https://participate.ulstercountyny.gov/midtown-linear-park. The event at the Broadway Bubble, a nonprofit community laundromat funded by NoVo in Kingston, will include guided site walks as well as drawings and diagrams laying out the area’s geography, history and ecology.

Project organizers will ask for public input on opportunities and challenges posed by the site and what they would like to see happen there. Wilson said she expected the design phase to run into next year and include additional events and outreach efforts. Wilson added that the county had not yet identified funds to carry out the project, but she anticipated applying for grants and other funding opportunities to complete the work.