New York Barge Canal
From Free net encyclopedia
Current revision
The New York State Barge Canal is a successor to the Erie Canal and other canals within New York. Currently, the 525-mile (845 km) Barge Canal system is composed of the Erie Canal, the Oswego Canal, the Cayuga and Seneca Canal, and the Champlain Canal. Other canal systems in the state have been allowed to deteriorate, already having been superseded by other transporation modes, first by the railroads and then by truck transport.
The Erie Canal allows connects the Hudson River to Lake Erie; the Cayuga-Seneca Canal connects Seneca Lake and Cayuga Lake to the Erie Canal; the Oswego Canal connects the Erie Canal to Lake Ontario; and the Champlain Canal connects the Hudson River to Lake Champlain.
The barge canal was built as an improvement of the old Erie canal system, beginning in 1905 and completed in 1918. It is 12 feet (4 meters) deep, with 57 electrically operated locks, and can accommodate vessels up to 2000 tons (1800 metric tons).
Since the 1970s, the state has ceased modernizing the system due to the shift to truck transport. The canal is preserved primarily for historical and recreational purposes. Today, very few commercial vessels use the canal; it is mainly used by private pleasure boats, although it also serves as a supply of fresh water and as a method of controlling floods. In 2004, the New York State Canal Corporation reported a total of 122,034 recreational lockings on the canal, along with 8,514 tour boat lockings and 7,369 hire boat lockings, and a total of 12,182 tons of cargo valued at approximately $102 million was shipped on the canal system.
Financial support of the canal system is from tolls collected on the New York State Thruway; it is operated by the Thruway Authority's Canal Recreationway Commission. The application of tolls to support the canal and other non-thruway projects is a matter of controversy.