Connecting Between Poughkeepsie Train Station and New Paltz Trip Reports

Story of this route

Ken Roberts, July 2002: 

Sharon and I rarely if ever rode between Poughkeepsie and New Paltz, so for a long time we did not put any connecting route on the Bike Hudson Valley website. 

We started hearing about New York City folks taking the train up and riding in the New Paltz area.  And in June and July 2002, Tony rode between New Paltz and Poughkeepsie, and we made some suggestions about what roads to take and what to avoid.  Then one Sunday evening we were driving back to Poughkeepsie and we saw two bicyclists on the "bad" section of Route 9W, one carrying his bike and looking disappointed -- and that was the impulse for putting the West-bound and East-bound Poughkeepsie / New Paltz routes up on the website. 

Although we still have no reason to ride that route on a bicycle, we checked all the roads and turns in a car in July 2002. 

Roads not taken:

• Route 9W -- a section of Route 9W just north of the Mid-Hudson Bridge access and the Route 44 intersection has a bad shoulder or no shoulder on a hill (as of July 2002).

This is unexpected, since many segments of Route 9W north from the bridge to Kingston have a good shoulder. Our memory is that in the early 1990's the section between Route 299 and the Mid-Hudson Bridge mostly had bad or missing shoulders. Then the road was greatly improved -- but this one difficult section was left in bad shape.

• New Paltz Rd south of Route 299 -- shortens the distance, but contains some curves on a hill (near Route 299) with what looks to us like questionable visibility to cars. It's also a tempting short-cut to local car drivers, who might also be trying to save more time by going a little faster through those curves.