European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 02, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Has experience promoting economic development along the new York thruway interstates 87 and 90. Unlike the transportation department the thruway authority is a separate state Agency that raises its own Money through tolls and by Selling  canal has been neglected for too Long said Peter Tufo thruway authority chairman. Our main goal is to preserve the Best of the past preserve the wilderness areas and the historic structures. It s another Way of life. The canal gives you a sense of 19th-Century america.". Right now the Agency is subsidizing the canal through surplus thruway tolls. Next year the thruway authority plans to implement tolls on the canal the first time the state has charged boats since tolls were abolished on the old Erie in 1882. The Agency also Hopes to raise Money by leasing canal property to investors who want to open restaurants guest houses or other businesses. In a sense the Erie was new York s thruway in the 19th Century eliminating the need for arduous Overland journeys on pitted dirt paths through forests the route the canal s inexperienced engineers chose for the Erie was so perfect that planners Laid out the thruway Fly Sarahh to the original waterway when they Buh the to \ a Rig Hwaying the 1950s. An old canal lock now Farsi removed from ithe present Erie sits beside the thruway near port Byron in Central new York maybe the Erie was even a better improvement than the thruway said Thomas Grasso president of the canal Solety of new York slate. The thruway just made Road traffic better. The canal was a revolutionary Way of travelling across country. It was this narrow ribbon of water that made new York the Empire  original Erie was just 40 feet wide and 4 feet deep the same depth As above ground swimming pools. Despite its Small size the canal bore so much traffic that the state. Began to Widen and deepen it just a few years after it opened. R states joined the canal Boom digging their own Waterways. After a few decades canals fed into disuse As railroads took away passenger traffic the Erie continued to ship cargo and in 1 905, new York began widening and deepening it again. The Erie became part of the 525-mile Barge canal system which includes the Champlain in Eastern new York and Trie Oswego and Cayuga Seneca canals in Central new York. A 1 951commercial cargo on the canals totalled 5.2 million tons. By last year that fed to 162,000 tons with Only about 3,000 tons being carried on the Erie. The canal s commercial Days Are Ofer.  Willie loan none is still walking the canal. During his four hour stroll one Day he passes dozens of people onto Towpath but onry one boat a thruway authority maintenance Craft. When he returns to lock 33, his base three pleasure boats Are waiting to enter the lock heading West if s a weekday when boat traffic is lightest lock tender John Hatch Saky traffic was Busy the previous weekend with 34 boats passing through the lock on sunday. In 1992, 132,000 pleasure boats passed through locks on the entire canal system. That s Down a bit from previous years big fits nearly twice the number of 1979,. When canal use hit a Low Point. To Obrist traffic on the Erie crept Back up in the last decade and despite the new tolls thruway authority officials Hope a Here pleasure boaters will use the canal. The Erie May be too slow for a lot of people. They re travelling at 10 Miles an hour. That s not realty water skiing said Sarah Wiles Ehmann daughter of the operator of shakes navigation co., which rents european style canal boats for people who want to spend a week afloat but our people Are looking to get away from everybody else discovering a Way to look at the Countryside that s different from staring out from a car. The canal is a Beautiful Park that stretches All the Way across new  today s Erie can be a disappointment to visitors because few signs remain of the old canal. There Are some aqueducts left standing and a flight of five old locks remain in Lockport North of Buffalo beside the two huge Modem locks that carry boats up and Down the Niagara Falls escarpment. At a canal museum in Rome in Central new York the spot where digging began on the Erie is now a ditch you can hop Over. ". Most people who get interested in canals Are looking to find out about the Distant past said nonet Wynd  . Many of the folktales Are tied into the 19th Century. There Aren t As Many about the Modem canal because i dont think there is that same Romance about it. Idon think there wih Ever be nov a or a Ballad written about the Barge  maybe if s the absence of mules. A moronic but Waves to a passenger on a boat Tom Northrop och Kego Tail out of the lower lock in Lockport a two Hack system Lowe Botts about 60 feet How the ditch was dug the roots of the Erie canal stretch Back More than two centuries when pioneers first conceived of a waterway across the new York wilderness George Washington suggested it during a trip through the Mohawk Valley West of Albany in 1783. The canal gained popular Appeal after a Man in debtor s prison Jesse Hawley published a series of newspaper articles in support of the waterway. Many thought the idea was pure science fiction. Ii is a splendid project and May be executed a Century hence but it is Lite Short of madness to think of it at this Day replied president Jefferson when asked in 1809 for Federal Aid to build the Manaj. A year later canal supporters enlisted the Aid of Dewitt Clinton an aristocratic politician who became the Erie s v greatest proponent detractors called the canal Clinton s ditch or Clinton s Fohy claiming it could t be done and that the Money spent would be wasted. Clinton became new York governor in 1817, the same year canal digging began in Rome near the Center of new York. It was America s first great Public works project costing $7 million. Dug to horse and manpower the canal a considered an engineering Marvel. A series of 82 locks lifted boats up the 500-foot Elevation Between Albany and Buffalo. In Lockport North of Buffalo 10 locks were blasted out of the Rock that formed the Niagara Falls escarpment free locks lifting westbound boats and five lowering eastbound ones. Comparatively the canal was pro Bably our biggest project except for the atom bomb. Heaven help us said novelist Walter Edmonds who grew up near the canal. Edmonds 90, who now lives in Massachusetts wrote Rome hau4 drum along the Mohawk and other novels set on new York Waterways. On oct 26,1825, Clinton led a flotilla of canal boats East from Buffalo toward new York City the first trip on the Erie. In new York Harbor Clinton dumped two barrels of Lake Erie water proclaiming it the wedding of the Waters Between the great lakes and the Atlantic Ocean. David Germain v tuesday november 2,1993 the stars and stripes 19