[7][8] Since the 1970s, the state has ceased modernizing the system due to the shift to truck transport.

Today, very few commercial vessels use the canal; it is mainly used by private pleasure boats, although it also serves as a method of controlling floods.

Payment of a fee for a permit is required to traverse the locks and lift bridges with motorized craft.

[11] 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.

At the end of August 2011 Tropical Storm Irene caused closure of almost the entire canal due to flooding.

[2] In 2012, the Canal Corp., then a subsidiary of the New York State Thruway Authority, employed 529 people, consisting of 458 full-time employees and 78 seasonal workers.

[16] An August 2012 report by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said the canal system "contributed to the deterioration of the Authority's financial condition over the past decade", even as canal traffic had dropped nearly one-third since the period immediately before the Thruway Authority assumed control.