Streetsblog New York City

Despite a committed group of local advocates, official consideration of new bicycle infrastructure in Upper Manhattan has been on hold for years. A public forum held by Manhattan Community Board 12 last week could finally lead to some forward movement on street safety and bicycle issues for the neighborhood.

After a number of delays, CB 12 convened the special forum last Thursday night, with community members, advocates and city officials all participating. Now that the groups have met and discussed topics of interest, the normal public process between the community board and the Department of Transportation for developing new bike infrastructure and street safety projects may move ahead.

With the Hudson River Greenway serving as the central artery for bike traffic in the area, greenway issues were of top concern at the forum. Participants discussed the so-called lighthouse link, which would extend the greenway at water level past the George Washington Bridge, allowing pedestrians and cyclists to avoid the steep hill they must currently climb. They also brought up the entrance to the greenway at 181st Street, which lets off at a one-way highway on-ramp and forces cyclists exiting the greenway to walk their bikes along the sidewalk. The street used to be bi-directional, but one lane was eliminated and replaced with curb parking when the highway entrance re-opened last year.

Local advocates also raised the prospect of building the Dyckman greenway connector, a proposed separated bike lane that would connect the greenways along the Hudson and Harlem Rivers. The connector has so far been left out of DOT’s plans for Inwood but could get a big boost from CB 12 support.

Jonathan Rabinowitz, a member of the local advocacy group Bike Upper Manhattan, was at the meeting and filed the following report.

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[The] bike lane forum held by Manhattan Community Board 12 was well attended by bicyclists and complete streets advocates. We heard from Hayes Lord of DOT’s Bicycle Program, John Mattera, the Parks Greenway planner, Aja Hazelhoff of Transportation Alternatives, Rich Conroy of Bike New York, Christine Berthet from the Transportation Committee of Manhattan CB 4 (Hell’s Kitchen), Tila Duhaime of the Upper West Side Streets Renaissance, and Brad Conover of Bike Upper Manhattan (my group).

Two of the board’s traffic & transportation committee members were absent, but three board members who spoke up, Gloria Vanterpool, Yosef Kalinsky, and Mitchell Glenn, were very positive about the forum. Gloria, who is the chairwoman of the Committee on the Concerns of the Aging, said that she had never learned to ride a bike but that she was impressed with the complete streets arguments and would support more bike lanes in Washington Heights and Inwood. Another T&T committee member, Edith Prentiss, an advocate for wheelchair users, pointed out that for changes in the streetscape to be successful, the changes would require local disabled residents to be retrained in the new traffic patterns.

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The parks committee of Manhattan Community Board 7 restated its support for shared bike/pedestrian paths through Riverside Park and Central Park last night. In Central Park, the shared paths would create new east-west routes through the park, while in Riverside, the community board is fighting against the Parks Department’s surprise imposition of dismount signs on what was once a part of the greenway system.

In Central Park, progress is continuing apace, reported committee co-chair Klari Neuwelt. She said that Doug Blonsky, the head of the Central Park Conservancy, had told her that plans to allow bikes on certain east-west pedestrian paths through the park were moving forward around 102nd Street, 97th Street, and in the 80s. “You’ll have options in Central Park,” promised Neuwelt.

She added, however, that the plan to allow bikes to take the 72nd Street Cross Drive across the park is moving more slowly through the Department of Transportation than hoped.

In Riverside Park, however, a victory that seemed to be in hand remains elusive. Neuwelt said that she had been informed that the dismount signs in Riverside Park were to be replaced with signs urging bikes to ride slowly and share the space with pedestrians. Then, however, the Parks Committee received what Neuwelt called “a pretty weasely e-mail back from John Herrold,” the administrator of Riverside Park, shying away from any such commitment.

The Parks Committee promised to keep on top of Riverside Park to see that the dismount signs are removed. “We’re working on it,” said Neuwelt. “We’re not about to be taken for patsies either.”

In the long term, engineering efforts to take some pressure off the 72nd Street entrance to Riverside Park are still being pursued. CB 7 chair Mel Wymore noted that as part of the Riverside Center negotiations, funding was allocated to create a new ramp from 72nd Street to the greenway, so cyclists will go from road to greenway without passing through the park. The committee also pledged to continue pursuing the plan to create bike access from the 79th Street boat basin to the greenway.

In the short term, though, they said that getting rid of the dismount signs is the top priority. “There’s always going to be a need for bikers to enter at 72nd,” said Neuwelt.

A properly designed park must help promote cycling and walking, according to new city guidelines. “High Performance Landscape Guidelines: 21st Century Parks for NYC,” a new blueprint for the design, construction and maintenance of the city’s parks, puts forward a transportation vision with active modes at the center.

The guidelines, a joint venture of the Parks Department and the Design Trust for Public Space, envision bike and foot paths connecting parks to each other and to surrounding neighborhoods, providing new opportunities for physical activity. At the same time, they recommend reducing (but not eliminating) the footprint of the automobile on city parks.

The Parks Department sees active transportation as a way to bind the entire park system together. “Understanding connectivity has to become part of the design mindset,” said Nette Compton, a senior project manager for design with the Parks Department.

In waterfront parks, for example, the guidelines reiterate the city’s commitment to a continuous greenway system for both cyclists and pedestrians. The city should create safe biking and walking routes to active recreation parks and playgrounds, it suggests, so that exercise doesn’t just begin when someone steps onto the basketball court. The Queens Plaza bike lane is held up as a case study in how to redesign the streetscape, as are Greenstreets plantings used to calm traffic.

At the same time, the guidelines make it a priority to reduce the amount of park space swallowed up by pavement.

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The Hudson River Greenway is the busiest bike route in the city, with around 5,000 cyclists riding it during the peak 12-hour period each day. This June, the Parks Department abruptly put up dismount signs at the 72nd Street entrance to Riverside Park, interrupting a popular access route to a major corridor within Manhattan’s green transportation network.

Cyclists, pedestrians, and dog walkers all use the 72nd Street entrance heavily, and while no resolution has yet been reached, many now see adding bike lanes at other greenway access points as the best way to reduce conflict. But even if those plans are pursued, cyclists won’t be able to ride this critical link without fear of getting fined unless the Parks Department changes the dismount policy.

At a meeting of the Manhattan Community Board 7 Parks Committee last night, CB members, the city, and local activists seemed to coalesce around a plan to improve bike access to the greenway at 79th Street, taking some pressure off 72nd and thereby mitigating the rationale for dismount signs. Both committee co-chairs saw the 79th Street plan as a partial solution worth pursuing and steered the conversation toward the more controversial question of what to do on the 72nd Street path.

Parks Department Greenway Coordinator John Mattera explained the 79th Street idea using an electricity analogy. “Bicycles follow the path of least resistance,” he said. If you want to reduce conflict on the 72nd Street path, he added, “the way to do that is to make a lightning rod out of 79th Street.” With fewer cyclists at 72nd, he said, the dismount policy could be swapped for something a little less heavy-handed. Mattera said that he’d spoken with the NYC DOT and that “as sure as anything can be at City DOT,” striping a new bike lane along 79th and leading into the park was part of their plan for 2011.

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Above 34th Street, the East Side of Manhattan is unforgiving for cyclists, without any real provision to ride safely and quickly. The one dedicated path for bicycling, the East River Greenway, is barely usable for practical trips — the gap between 38th Street and 63rd Street being the most prominent of several flaws. On a ride organized by Transportation Alternatives this Sunday, Michael Auerbach of neighborhood group Upper Green Side led a group of about 20 cyclists, including City Council Member Dan Garodnick, on a tour of the greenway path to take in its pinch points, shoddy surfaces, and other shortcomings. Here’s a short photo tour of the trip from 6th Street to 63rd Street, with an assist from TA’s Kim Martineau.

The city has begun exploring a plan that would plug the greenway gap using funds secured through a land swap with the United Nations. If, after looking at these pictures, you’re wondering about what you can do to support a better greenway, it may helpful to keep in mind Garodnick’s parting message from the Sunday tour: “Communicate to your elected officials.”

The pathway narrows and cyclists must dismount in front of the Crow’s Nest, sandwiched between the FDR Drive and the East River, before riding through the restaurant’s parking lot.

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Central Park Conservancy head Douglas Blonsky wants his park to get a lot more bike-friendly, he revealed at a meeting of Manhattan’s Community Board 7′s parks committee last night. Not only is he working to create shared use paths that would allow cyclists to cross the park east-west safely and legally, he repeatedly announced his support for removing vehicular traffic from Central Park entirely.

The context for both positions is what Blonsky called “the skyrocketing use” of Central Park. Estimating that the park is visited 35 million times annually, there are ever more conflicts between cars, cyclists, joggers, strollers, dog-walkers, and other park users each year.

The result is a stream of complaints. Cyclists say park rules force them to choose between violating the law by riding on pedestrian paths, looping miles out of their way, or navigating the treacherous transverses, where a cyclist was killed in 2006. Pedestrians say they feel threatened by the cyclists illegally riding on pedestrian-only paths. “A lot more of the complaints are from the side of people who don’t like bikes on the paths and are afraid of them,” said Blonsky.

With cyclists riding east-west whether it’s allowed or not, Blonsky hopes that re-orienting some existing paths as legal routes for cycling will help everyone get along. He suggested four routes. (It might help to follow along on a Central Park map, available here). The easiest to implement would travel roughly along 102nd Street, a route which he said is already used by as many bicyclists as pedestrians. Another path would travel either on the north or south side of the 97th Street Transverse. Another route would likely pass near the Great Lawn, in the low 80s, but heavy pedestrian volumes might force that path to include a segment where cyclists have to dismount.

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The New York City Parks Department has come up with a striking new method to demean pedestrians and cyclists and disrupt the public right-of-way.

Parks has allowed a catering hall called the Vanderbilt ("Staten Islands only oceanfront ballroom") to fence off a portion of the greenway running alongside the boardwalk in South Beach, according to a report in the Staten Island Advance. The fence forces greenway users to turn around and detour to Father Capodanno Boulevard, and it's already claimed a victim: Local resident Gregory DeRespino landed in the hospital with injuries to his shoulder, neck and calf, after unsuspectingly biking into the fence the morning it went up.

Vanderbilt manager Joe Tranchina received permission from Parks to put up the fence after pitching it as a safety precaution to reduce conflicts between greenway users and the restaurant's delivery vehicles and valet service. Apparently, someone at Parks gave the green light "on a trial basis," according to a department spokesperson quoted by the Advance.

You've got to wonder how the city allowed such an idea to reach this point. A private business just convinced Parks to let it block off the public right-of-way and "erase" street markings with what looks to be a hasty paintjob. Did they even have to fill out any paperwork, or does it just take a few phone calls? Neither the Parks Department nor Tranchina have returned our requests for information so far.

Hat tip to Meredith Sladek for alerting us to this story.

On Sunday, a group of city officials and East Side electeds made their case for a deal to close the gap in the East River Greenway, addressing a full auditorium at the Schottenstein Cultural Center on East 34th Street. The deal has several moving parts, but the major takeaway was that the Bloomberg administration and a large group of legislators want to make the greenway happen.

Currently there is no greenway between 60th and 37th Streets -- a huge gap around the United Nations campus that forces cyclists on the East Side into some of the most harrowing traffic in the city. The linchpin of the deal unveiled Sunday involves trading city land for U.N. financial support to build the greenway connector.

The city would sell the western part of Robert Moses Playground, a rectangle of asphalt at the corner of 41st and First Avenue. An area that attracts occasional recreational use would be annexed. Space used for a dog run, handball and basketball courts would not be touched. In turn, the U.N. would pay the city $150 million, mainly for the right to construct a new building the same height as the current U.N. tower. The funding would be used to complete the East River waterfront esplanade and plug the greenway gap.

A succession of local electeds spoke in favor of the deal, including State Senator Liz Krueger, Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh, City Council Member Daniel Garodnick, and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, who told the crowd, “I want to ride my bike there.”

The details of the plan were fleshed out by Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe and Madelyn Wils of the NYC Economic Development Corporation.

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If New York City had a livable streets hall of fame, Thomas P. F. Hoving would be enshrined alongside heroes like Jane Jacobs. As Parks Commissioner under Mayor John Lindsay, Hoving spearheaded the original effort to reverse the onslaught of motor vehicle traffic in the city's flagship parks, instituting the first car-free hours on the Central Park loop drive in 1966. It was a pioneering act of reclamation for pedestrians and cyclists.

Hoving died last week at the age of 78. In his later years, he remained a supporter of car-free parks. After meeting up with Hoving in 2003, car-free Central Park advocate Ken Coughlin received this email, in which the former commissioner explained exactly who has the legal authority to make New York City parks car-free. In light of the NYPD's recent foray into traffic policy, the message is extremely timely.

The 1961 City Charter provisions stating that Traffic Commissioner is in charge of Traffic Flow but Parks Commissioner can select curb lines and park entrance gates are still in effect. Benepe needs no legislation, executive order or act of the almighty to close 24-7-365. He needs to get his courage perking.

ALL the arguments against any closing which will emerge today surfaced when I closed Central the first time, 6 a.m to 9 a.m. that Sunday

• Traffic would jam from Tampa to Maine
• NYC transport systems would collapse
• Huge economic loss, Etc., etc.

But nothing happened.

In three months -- you can even check to Parks Horti records -- the trees on the drive flourished. It was as if a cloud of poison had been lifted from them.

Car carbon dioxide is like second-hand smoking. Which suggests that if permanent closing advocates use this as an argument Bloomberg can hardly be against it.

In the fall of 2007, 2008, and again this year, Streetsblog readers have alerted us to hazardous conditions on the "Cherry Walk" segment of the Hudson River Greenway. According to the city, no major improvements are in the offing.

Due to the absence of lighting, once clocks are rolled back for daylight-saving time the Greenway between W. 102 and W. 125 Streets is plunged into darkness during the evening rush. Making matters worse is the glare of headlights from the Henry Hudson Parkway. Writes Upper Manhattan commuter Brad Conover:

The combination of no lights on the path and oncoming headlights of southbound traffic makes it impossible to see the bike path. There should be three new lines painted marking north and southbound biking lanes, not just one line separating bikers from pedestrians with no indication as to N/S-bound bikers, and there should be lights on the path and/or hedges to block the lights of oncoming traffic. I am sure someone is going to get seriously hurt on that path through no fault of their own.

Jacob-uptown, who sent in photographs of the area last year, was informed in a January 2009 letter that DOT would be recommending that the Parks Department include Cherry Walk lighting in its next round of capital construction contracts (though Parks previously indicated to Streetsblog that such a project would fall under the purview of DOT). Aside from some new shrubbery that "only helps a bit," Jacob reports that no changes have been made since last fall.

Last week, DOT told Streetsblog that defective highway lights along the Cherry Walk stretch would be replaced, but said there are no plans to install lighting on the Greenway itself.