New York State Canal System
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The New York State Canal System (formerly known as 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) system is composed of the Erie Canal, the Oswego Canal, the Cayuga-Seneca Canal, and the Champlain Canal.
The Erie Canal 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.
In 1905, construction was begun to replace the old Erie Canal and its few remaining feeder canals with a new waterway, the New York State Barge Canal, which was completed in 1918. The Barge Canal's new route took advantage of rivers (such as the Mohawk River, Oswego River, Seneca River and Clyde River) that the original Erie Canal builders had avoided, thus bypassing some major cities formerly on the route, such as Syracuse, New York. However, particularly in western New York State, the canal system uses the same (enlarged) channel as the original Erie Canal.
Since 1992, the Barge Canal is no longer known by that name. Individual canals in the New York State Canal System, formerly collectively known as "the Barge Canal," are now referred to by their original names (Erie Canal, Oswego Canal, Cayuga-Seneca Canal, and Champlain Canal). Today, the system's canals are 12 feet (4 meters) deep, 120 feet wide, 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; since 1992, 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. Usage fees for boaters were eliminated in 2006.
Travel on the Canal's middle section (particularly in the Mohawk River valley) was severely hampered during destructive flooding in Upstate New York in late June and early July 2006. Flood damage to the canal system and its facilities has been estimated to be at least $15 million.
