RAY BROOK — Two cell-phone towers, recently approved by Adirondack Park Agency commissioners, will bring service to the remaining “dark” stretch of Interstate 87.

T-Mobile is expanding its communication system in the Adirondack Park and has received 19 permits — mostly for co-location on existing towers — since last October, said departing Regulatory Programs Director Mark Sengenberger.

Two of five new towers planned will provide islands of coverage in a mountainous stretch of Northway between North Hudson and Elizabethtown.

It is the one remaining stretch of nearly 40 miles of Interstate 87 — from Pottersville to Peru — that remains without some cell-phone signal.

SIMONDS HILL ROAD

Both T-Mobile towers will be built with fake brown-bark tower sheathing and ersatz pine boughs to blend with the forest backdrop.

The first tower, a 93-foot monopine, will be erected on Simonds Hill Road in Elizabethtown, west of the Northway.

The tower will hold flush-mounted antennae and is designed at a height to add one other telecommunications carrier, likely AT&T.

T-Mobile looked at five potential sites nearby before choosing Simonds Hill, said Lee Walrath, staff planner at APA.

The traveling public will see the tower for about 1,900 feet of I-87 — or roughly 20 seconds at 55 miles per hour — from the southbound lane.

It is visible for 1,280 feet — or for about 14 seconds — from the northbound lane, Walrath said.

APA received one comment letter in support of the cell tower.

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