Shared lane arrows point the way between the Hudson River Greenway and 181st Street. Previously, this was a one-way street. Photo: c34 via Flickr.

Two months after winning support from Manhattan Community Board 12, a safer connection to the Hudson River Greenway is now in place at 181st Street.

Before, Riverside Drive north of 181st Street served as a one-way highway on-ramp, forcing cyclists exiting the greenway to either ride against traffic or dismount. Cars, too, drove the wrong way to get back on local streets without entering the Henry Hudson Parkway, creating unsafe conditions.

Now, DOT has turned a short stretch of Riverside back into a two-way street with shared lane markings painted in both directions. At the cost of a few parking spaces, this critical Upper Manhattan greenway entrance has been made safer and more easily accessible.

The changes check off one item on Community Board 12′s list of requested bike infrastructure improvements, which it passed unanimously this July. Perhaps some high-quality bike lanes for Upper Manhattan will be next.

Photo: Ken Coughlin

Streetsblog regular Ken Coughlin alerted us to a Saturday afternoon collision between a yellow cab driver and a cyclist on the Hudson River Greenway at 43rd Street. Ken took this picture at 3:45 p.m. He said the cyclist appeared to be unconscious.

The crash happened at the entrance to the Circle Line dock, which Coughlin says is “a particularly dangerous crossing because it gets a fair amount of fast-moving traffic coming in from the east.” Data from Transportation Alternatives’ CrashStat show that seven cyclists and one pedestrian have been injured in collisions there since 2003. The site is a few blocks north of where greenway cyclist Carl Nacht was killed by an NYPD tow truck driver in 2006.

The NYPD public information office had no details on the crash. According to a spokesperson, this indicates “minor injuries only” and “no criminality involved.”

If you have any information on what happened here, please leave it in the comments or send us an e-mail.

The current configuration of this block of Riverside Drive, which feeds directly onto the Henry Hudson Parkway, makes it impossible to legally bike from the west side greenway (accessible via the overpass at the top of this image) onto local roads. Under a plan approved by CB 12's transportation committee, it will be converted to a two-way street. Image: Google Maps

Right now, Riverside Drive north of 181st Street runs one-way and quickly becomes an on-ramp to the Henry Hudson Parkway. The only entrance to the Hudson River Greenway in the area is on that block, meaning cyclists exiting the much-used path must either illegally ride against the highway-bound traffic or dismount and walk south along the sidewalk. At the same time, drivers parked on that block often drive in reverse to 181st Street rather than go forward onto the highway. That’s created unsafe conditions which local activists have fought hard to fix.

The new configuration would change the section of Riverside before it becomes a true on-ramp into a two-way street with shared bike lane markings, reported Bike Upper Manhattan member Brad Conover, who attended last night’s meeting. Parking would be removed from the west side of the street, a fact which the community board grudgingly accepted, noting in its resolution that it would like to find replacement parking elsewhere.

“Bike Upper Manhattan applauds CB-12 Traffic and Transportation Committee’s resolution last night endorsing DOT’s plan to correct one of the most glaringly unsafe street designs in Washington Heights,” said Conover. “Cyclists exiting the Westside Greenway at 181st no longer will be dumped into oncoming one way traffic.”

In the long-term, DOT told the community board, a redesign of the park could provide cyclists with a ramp that connects directly onto 181st Street. Those changes would be years away at the earliest, however. In the meantime, the changes will help connect Washington Heights to the country’s most-used bike path.

A reader sends along this shot from the Hudson River Greenway exit at W. 72nd Street. Cyclists are apparently no longer required to dismount on the shared path that connects the greenway and Riverside Drive, a ham-handed directive issued by the Parks Department last summer. Our tipster says the new signs have replaced dismount instructions, which were reportedly backed up by threats of summonses.

Good to see Parks acknowledge the value of this link to cyclists with an eye toward safety for all users.

Streetsblog reader Mark Davis has put together a map showing how greenway-bound cyclists are funneled through the West 29th Street tunnel where Marilyn Dershowitz was killed on Saturday.

Dershowitz, 68, was riding with her husband Nathan at around noon when she was hit by the driver of a US Postal Service truck just west of Ninth Avenue, underneath a building overhang that straddles the street. She later died at Bellevue Hospital. The driver, who claimed he was unaware he hit someone, did not stop after the collision. He has not been charged.

As Davis’s map shows, there is no other continuous westbound greenway connection between 17th and 43rd that isn’t a wide and dangerous street.

“The project advisory committee of the DOT Hell’s Kitchen Study (which covers this area) has proposed a number of east-west connections,” says Christine Berthet, co-founder of the Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen Coalition for Pedestrian Safety. “Hopefully the DOT bicycle team will accelerate their implementation. Unless these bike paths are protected, nothing will prevent another tragedy like this one.”

Marilyn Dershowitz was one of three people known to have been killed by a driver last week in Manhattan. On Thursday, 78-year-old Yolanda Casal died when an unlicensed driver chasing a parking spot backed into her and her daughter on Amsterdam Avenue. Chinatown pedestrian Kok Hoe Tee was killed Friday when an NYPD Auxiliary officer drove a department van onto the sidewalk after reportedly confusing the accelerator with the brake. Streetsblog is awaiting word from the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance regarding Edwin Carrasco, who hit Yolanda Casal, but as of this writing none of the drivers involved in these fatalities were reported charged.

“I am sickened by this death,” says Berthet, “and the fact that this driver is probably driving his truck again.”

Witnesses say the driver of a postal truck was jockeying for space with another vehicle when he fatally struck Marilyn Dershowitz. Photo: DNAinfo

Without a bollard, what would have been the next thing or person in this car's path? Photo: Transportation Alternatives

Via Gothamist — check out this bollard on the Hudson River Greenway at work.

One of the strange and dangerous things about the greenway is that car traffic crosses the car-free path at several points. Twice in 2006, motorists killed people using the greenway. On December 1, 2006, cyclist Eric Ng was run down by Eugenio Cidron, who was speeding on the greenway at 60 mph for a mile after driving away drunk from a party at Chelsea Piers. Earlier that year, Dr. Carl Henry Nacht was killed by an NYPD tow truck operator entering the tow pound at 38th Street.

A year after Ng’s death, Transportation Alternatives issued a call on Streetsblog for safety improvements to the greenway, including the installation of fixed bollards, like this one, to keep motorists from driving onto the car-free path.

I look at this picture and feel a mix of reassurance, satisfaction, and terror. How is it possible for someone to run into one of these high-contrast yellow-and-black plugs, about the height of a toddler, in broad daylight?

Streetsblog will be offline Monday and back publishing on Tuesday. Enjoy the long weekend, folks.

We got a couple of e-mails this week about a new directive from the Parks Department ordering cyclists to dismount on the Riverside Park path that connects the Hudson River Greenway and Riverside Drive at W. 72nd Street. On his Flickr page, BicyclesOnly says he learned of the restriction from parks enforcement:

[An] officer rode his SUV up the path behind me and issued a "warning bleep" and ordered me to dismount. I pointed out to him that the dismount instruction was first announced ahead of me and it was the first time I had ever seen the sign (which was true), so why did I have dismount? He told me that they would be getting more signs so that the entire pathway would be a dismount zone, and directed me to dismount.

Following his instructions, I dismounted, took out my camera, and a took this picture. He then asked why I was taking a picture. I told him there was no reason for me to tell him. He then told me it was a violation of park rules to take a picture of any official Parks Department signage. I told him I didn't believe there was any such rule and that I'd like him to go ahead and issue me a summons for taking a picture in the park. He got upset and scolded me for being sarcastic (I wasn't being sarcastic), but he didn't write me the summons.

He then proceeded to follow directly behind me in his SUV as I walked my bike up [the] hill. Then he took up a position in the 9A underpass and began scolding other cyclists.

Another tipster told us that a parks officer said cyclists would be issued summonses for ignoring the new rule, which, he points out, exponentially increases the commute time from Riverside Drive to the greenway. "The rule change and signage are symbolic of Parks' vague approach to dealing with the growing volume of cyclists on the greenway," he said, adding that the dismount order has not been accompanied by suggestions for alternate connections.

We have a message in with the Parks Department for details on the new dismount rule, including what's behind it.

If you biked down the Hudson River Greenway from the upper parts of Manhattan this morning, we've got some good news for your ride home. Here you see the freshly opened stretch between 83rd and 91st Street, which debuted today, giving cyclists a straight route without having to detour up through the middle of Riverside Park. The grand opening was also something of a symbolic occasion. Up until today this was the last missing piece in the greenway below the George Washington Bridge.

Photo: Ken Coughlin

As many commuting cyclists know all too well, lighting is nonexistent on the path between 63rd Street and 72nd Street and on the Cherry Walk some 35 blocks to the north. Herrold is aware of the problem in both areas. Between 63rd and 72nd, he's working with the DOT to install lighting similar to what's currently on the path between 59th and 63rd. He expects this new lighting to illuminate the way by the time the days grow shorter in the fall. Cherry Walk is more of a challenge, because the installation of electric lights there would be quite costly due to the lack of electrical hookups. Herrold is investigating solar-powered lighting, and in the meantime he's considering putting reflectors on some of the trees.

Meanwhile, the potential for greater conflict between cyclists and pedestrians may be developing on the path near the Pier I Café at 70th Street. The café uses a service facility on the east side of the bike path to store food and supplies, and a permanent restroom facility is being constructed on that side of the path as well. In addition, a Bike & Roll bicycle rental station will soon be opening a few steps to the north. All of which means that foot traffic crossing the path will likely increase at what is already a sometimes crowded bike-ped intersection. Herrold is aware of the potential hazards when fast-moving cyclists mix with pedestrians who walk into the path without looking, and he's considering speed humps to slow the faster cyclists down, as well as additional signage for crossing pedestrians.

Nighttime visibility on the Hudson River Greenway north of W. 102nd Street has not improved since Jacob-uptown took this photo a year ago.

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.

Spurred by comments following yesterday's post on Greenway access in Washington Heights, a reader put together this map [download the full size version] of how to get from the Greenway to the George Washington Bridge. It's no straight shot by any means. If the arrows are a little hard to follow, here are the directions:

Stay on the path under the bridge, take the bridge over Amtrak, the tunnel under S-bound parkway, the path then switches back south then north to parallel the N-bound parkway, which it crosses at a ped bridge to Riverside Drive. Go right onto Riverside, then left on 181st up to Ft. Washington. Depending on preference and access, go to either of the bridge path entrances.

Picking up on the previous thread, for those who know this route, how would you rate it in terms of safety and convenience? For those who don't, how likely would you be to try it? What could be done to simplify this connection, or make it safer?

May's Bike Month Critical Mass reportedly drew more participants than usual, and NYPD responded by handing out a passel of trumped-up summonses. No surprise there, but as this video (from glassbeadian via Gothamist) shows, officers on scooters went so far as to follow riders down the Hudson River Greenway.

Barbara Ross of Time's Up thinks police may have been acting in retaliation to recent movement on the long-standing Five Borough Bike Club lawsuit to overturn the parade permit requirement for bike rides of 50 or more cyclists. Check the Gothamist post for another vid that features scooter cops picking out which cyclists to harass.

The pathway in the park near the George Washington Bridge has been reopened to pedestrians and bicyclists as of this morning 4/28/09 and will not require any further closures.

Assuming no other projects are pending elsewhere along the route, it looks like bike riders and walkers can finally take advantage of an uninterrupted path from Battery Park to Inwood.

A temporary detour along the Hudson River Greenway in Washington Heights went into effect Thursday.

The closure, related to work on the George Washington Bridge, will reroute cyclists to Broadway and Ft. Washington Avenue between 158th and 181st Streets. According to a Port Authority flier [PDF], pedestrians may access the park and riverfront through the tunnel at 172nd Street.

Interruptions are to occur on a "periodic" basis until December 31, "typically" from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Streetsblogger Jacob-uptown: "You can see many of the street lamps on Henry Hudson Parkway are burned out. This makes the greenway completely unlit, except for oncoming car headlights."

Last December, Washington Heights resident Lars Klove alerted us to night-time conditions on a segment of the Hudson River Greenway known as Cherry Walk, which lies roughly between W. 102 and W. 125 Streets. Wrote Lars:

It is unlit and, if riding northbound, into the blinding headlights of southbound traffic, it is impossible to see the bicycle path even with a bike headlamp. The Greenway itself has one semi-reflective line marking the pedestrian lane from the bicycle lane. There is not a line marking the outside edges of the lane or a couple of grassy islands along the way. Its easy to find yourself suddenly off the roadway and in the grass or trees.

As illustrated by these photos from Streetsblog photo contributor Jacob-uptown, captioned with his comments, Greenway users are still in the dark nearly a year later. A press officer with Parks said the department is "aware of this issue," and told us that DOT should be in the process of addressing it. We have a message in with DOT and are awaiting word.

"This is the same view as [the photo above], except with the flash turned on. If you look closely, you can see that the path splits right ahead of you, and if you go straight, you will run into a tree."

More photos after the jump.

"If you look very very closely, you can see the faint green line painted on the ground that shows the path turning left. That is what my eyes are fixed on when I ride through this section of the path."

"This is the same view as [above], except with the flash turned on. Now you can clearly see that the path turns left."

According to the signage plan [PDF], cyclists and ped traffic will be rerouted to Broadway and Ft. Washington Avenue between 158th and 181st Streets, in Washington Heights. As you can see from the signs, work was scheduled to begin in September. According to a notice from Community Board 12, as of last week the PA was set to get started on November 3, but has since postponed again.

Streetsblog has a message in with the PA to see what the latest projected dates are. Looks like the work is supposed to take anywhere from six to eight weeks.

We received two reports last night that the West Harlem Piers bike path -- a critical link in the Hudson River Greenway -- is finally open after several months of puzzling delay. (NYCEDC informed Streetsblog last week that the hold up was indeed due to problems securing materials for a safety rail.) Now the construction fence is down, and, as you can see in these photos from reader Paula Froke, cyclists are enjoying the unbroken stretch of greenway.

Streetsblogger Urbanis cheers the end of a long wait:

After raising a stink about it a few weeks ago, I was amazed to discover on my ride home this evening that the West Harlem Piers bike path was open -- yes, all the fencing was removed, and I sailed free and clear along the new bike path all the way to 135th Street, where it connects with the existing bike path running around Riverbank State Park. Not having to brave ten blocks of traffic on Riverside Drive was a dream.

More piers pics from Paula after the jump.

Clarence reports that, for a moment at least, he felt like he'd been put on equal footing with drivers. It may be a small step, but this newfound attentiveness to directional signage for cyclists sure beats bent over pedestrian safety signs, and hard-to-spot share-the-road signs.

I was riding North on the Greenway tonight at about 9:15, and after clearing 60th street and entering the stretch under the elevated Miller Highway a southbound cyclists yelled at me, "Watch out! There's a pile of rocks across the bike path ahead."

I slowed down and carefully rode to 67th Street where what I saw was quite a shock.

A pile of ornamental rock had been taken from the the Riverside Park South border of the greenway and piled across the bike path. The pile was about 1 foot high in some places, and went across the entire bike path, and had already been scattered by what looked like an earlier collision. It was clearly intended to cause a serious  accident. The bike path is largely unlit in this stretch, and even with a bike light, the pile was hard to see.

Together with 4 other cyclists who stopped to help we cleared the obstruction.

I also called 311 on the scene who connected me to 911 who promised to dispatch a patrol car that never came after about 15 minutes. I have a card from one of the volunteers and one of the others also promised to email me with his contact info.

In addition to you, I was going to follow up w the Riverside Parks Commissioner, the Riverside Parks Fund, and see if I can get my case number from 311. Who else should i/we contact?

On a positive note I can report that even on this 32-degree evening the bike path was well traveled, and we had plenty of volunteers who quickly cleared the obstruction. I took this as a recreational ride to decompress from a meeting that ended at about 8p from Lincoln Center, riding down the Greenway (which was free of obstruction at the time) and then headed back up from the Battery. I would estimate that I encountered about 50 cyclists, a healthy increase over what it usually is on a relatively cold winter night. And the other bit of good news is that there was not a single one without lights -- which is real progress.

The bad news is that there is a seriously dangerous vandal out there out to cause harm to cyclists. And how this happened unobserved given all the use of the path that I saw is also very disconcerting.