The best view is in the middle. That's how it works on the Brooklyn Bridge. People walk about half way out then walk back.

I look forward to walking or riding on it ... or both.

For the reasons discussed above, the bridge seems like a good opportunity for bike/ped conflict.

If that's the case, I think that bikes need to yield to peds.

A lot depends on how the bridge gets used. If it's a bike/walk thoroughfare (meaning the primary use case is getting from one side to the other), then divide the space and everyone wins. Your idea of a middle lane for bikers is sound.

But, if it's more like an esplanade, where pedestrians' primary use is sitting, lingering, strolling, then I think bikes become a problem.

My guess is that the ends will be esplanade-like. (Few people will walk to the middle to sit on a bench when there are benches out near the ends.) The middle will be primarily used by those whose primary interest is crossing. If that's the case, promote/require bikers to walk their bikes through the esplanade-like end sections and let them high-tail it across the middle section.

I think that some clever design might even promote my esplanade-end scenario, not only discouraging riding on the ends, but discouraging lingering in the middle.

Bottom line: I think that there is a hierarchy of uses. Not all paths for pedestrians are suitable for bikes and vice-versa.

This bridge is a a part of the greenway system. Sean. I find you suggestions, well, I find them strange. How will bikes detract from the bridge? Can you explain?

Nobody bikes.

Cobbles would help, of course.

You could mess with the pavers and put it cobble stone, but that won't work since the pavers are a part of the "historic" aspects of the bridge.

The best way to slow bikers down is with a "critical mass" of peds.

We encourage multi-modal commuting. Why not encourage bike/walk commuting, where the walk part is this bridge?

Given the length of the bridge, however, the bike /ped conflict may be limited to the edges. How about walk-your-bike sections for the first hundred yards or so on each side and a center bike lane for the middle section?

As commenters stated last night, it would be seen as ridiculous to close a car bridge part of the time. Yet bikes and pedestrians are not viewed as seriously. Take, for example, the other ped-only Parks bridge over the Harlem River, the Wards Island Footbridge. It's closed several months of the year and open limited hours the rest of the time. I rarely use it as a result--it's a pain to keep track of the hours and one always worries that they might change arbitrarily anyway. The George Washington Bridge ped/bike path is also closed overnight while cars have free reign.

High Bridge can be a vital part of our ped/bike transportation and greenway network and should be open full time!

As commenters stated last night, it would be seen as ridiculous to close a car bridge part of the time. Yet bikes and pedestrians are not viewed as seriously. Take, for example, the other ped-only Parks bridge over the Harlem River, the Wards Island Footbridge. It's closed several months of the year and open limited hours the rest of the time. I rarely use it as a result--it's a pain to keep track of the hours and one always worries that they might change arbitrarily anyway. The George Washington Bridge ped/bike path is also closed overnight while cars have free reign.

High Bridge can be a vital part of our ped/bike transportation and greenway network and should be open full time!

This bridge can't accomodate cars, so better to leave it unregulated.

Right now I'm really more concerned about the hours of access, since at the meeting they said it'd be "only open on the weekends at first" (YIKES!) If you can't count on this bridge being open it will become a neglected backwater again, and kids will just keep jumping the fence (I don't care how tall it is) and that's just dangerous.

It needs to be open 24/7 --after going to the meeting I think this needs to be the primary thing we all advocate for. And I bet the pedestrians and bikers can all agree on this. We want it OPEN. When the bridge is open it will help make the park safer. I know they parks department "thinks" that park closes at dusk, but it's not like they can fence off a giant wooded area and keep people out. Like central park it's used at all hours, and rather than locking out people who follow the law and leaving it to the lawless we need to acknowledge how the park is used and then plan around it to meet the needs of the residents on foot and on pedal.

I think a good design for the bridge would encourage everybody to the other users into account. If the bridge is mostly empty (as it probably would be for morning rush hour) bikes can feel free to go as fast as they want. In the bridge is busy, bikers should limit themselves to 10 mph or so, and negotiate their way past the slower folks.

I do a lot of my commuting on multi-purpose bike paths, so I know than can work reasonably well. In the morning and in the winter I can go pretty fast most of the time. On summer afternoons, I have to slow down occasionally and say "on your left" a lot to get past the dog-walkers and the middle-aged couples out for a walk. But it's not too bad; most of the time, it's pretty pleasant.

If you paint stripes on the bridge to delineate pedestrian and bicycle zones, I would expect them to work about as well as the stripes that keep cars out of Class II bike-lanes -- not very well at all. But the separated zones would encourage some bikers to fly across the bridge, even when toddlers are wandering around or old people are hobbling from one side to the other.

I would encourage a design that encourages people to work cooperatively with each other, instead of insisting on mutually exclusive "rights." That's why I brought Monderman into the discussion.

If it's that crowded people will just walk their bikes anyway. I hope that crowds *are* the problem rather than the bridge being empty all the time and scary like back when it was closed. We should try to make the bridge inviting for everyone.

You know, if you open a manhole cover on the bridge you can climb down to this really cool walkway next to the old Croton aqueduct underneath. (Both the walkway and the pipes are suspended from the bottom of the bridge over the water 200 feet below.) Maybe send the bikers who don't want to dismount down there.

http://www.panix.com/~eravin/gallery/HighBridge/picture-056.html

(or click on my name to go there).

Those guys looked like they cross over every day.

We need to design public facilities so people can use them, not so they can be closed off from the public (like all those extra gates on the GW Bridge walkways).

It's only a short section of the greenway that works like that. It's not a big deal to slow down for just a block or so... and it's only like that after 1:00pm During the morning it's pretty empty.

There are about a jig-llion people at the seaport, this uptown bridge won't have those kinds of crowds, most of the time. I think the bridge being too empty at hours of the night might be the bigger problem.

How many people are going to just "hang out" on a bridge? Some, yes, but this is way uptown and there are not as many people. There should be people on this bridge at most hours of the day and night if it is working right, and to make that happen you need to bring in commuters on foot and on bike.