Archive: Around Town

The Lansing Center Trail is a 2.4 mile trail that traces the perimeter of more than 150 acres of town land that will be the site of the new town center across the street from the Lansing Town Hall.  It's plan includes three smaller loops near the railroad bed left by the defunct Ithaca-Auburn Short Line.  This summer Eagle Scout candidate Dave Miller, 17, plans to clear a walking path along a half mile of the railroad bed to provide a shaded increment to the trail.

"There is a small, winding animal path along the railroad bed," Miller says.  "So we're not going to go through with hedge clippers and chain saws and just whack everything away.  We're going to be doing our best to try to follow the natural animal path.  Instead of just walking straight you'll make a turn here and there."

In addition to clearing the path Miller plans signs pointing out historical landmarks and telling about the now defunct railroad.  He will also work on an R-shaped loop of the trail at the north-eastern portion of the trail.  He will also document plants along the trail, and build a bridge across a small stream.  The bridge will match the design of an existing bridge elsewhere on the Town trail.  The final part of the project is to find GPS coordinates along the path and plotting them on Google maps for the Lansing Pathways Committee's brochure.


The ambitious project was approved by the Troop 4 Scoutmaster, the Troop's Parent Board,  the Pathways Committee, and the Boy Scout District Executive.  Once the project and other requirements are completed, Miller's accomplishments will be considered by an Eagle Board of Review before officially becoming an Eagle Scout.  Eagle Scout projects demonstrate leadership, organization, and community service.  Miller says he has aspired to earn Eagle status for a long time.

"I went to my first Eagle Court of Honor before I was even in Boy Scouts, and I thought, 'Wow, this is awesome.  I hope I can have one of these some day.'  When I saw my older brother doing his project and going through his Court of honor, that made me decide that I want to be able to do this when I'm his age," he says.

Miller has already met with Lansing Historian Louise Bement to learn the history of the Ithaca-Auburn Short Line was chartered in 1900 to connect Ithaca and Auburn along a railroad bed that had formerly been used by the New York and Oswego Midland Railroad.  It began service in 1908.  The southern portion from Ithaca to South Lansing the line was serviced by electric street cars that got their power from an overhead wire.  The rest of the line, including the section Miller will be clearing, was serviced by trains pulled by steam engines.  A short branch line was extended to Rogue's Harbor Inn in 1909.  The line ran until 1923.  Much of the railroad bed still exists, though now most of it is privately owned, with some portions plowed flat on farmlands.

The short line began at a station sandwiched by Ithaca's State and Seneca Streets, running east past the current location of Ithaca High School, then north a bit east of East Shore Drive to a transfer station at  Terpening Corners (where Crossroads Bar & grill is now located) in South Lansing where passengers could embark from the street cars to catch the train to Auburn, where the Short Line connected with the Lehigh Valley Railroad.


Miller notes that his project dovetails with the Lansing Pathways Committee's mission statement in that the portion of the trail he will be working on was designated as the second phase of the town pathway project.  It is also a good fit for Miller's own interests.

"I really enjoy hiking.  By opening up more trails in any community you reach a larger crowd," Miller says.  "I really like history, so the signs are a way to make the project interesting for me, and so people know some basic information about the (path) they're walking on."

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