Streetsblog New York City

Mary Beth Kelly's story is as inspirational as they come.

In June 2006, she and her husband Dr. Carl Henry Nacht were bicycling home from dinner on the Hudson River Greenway in Chelsea when an NYPD tow truck turned sharply into the bike lane at 38th Street and 12th Avenue. Despite signs telling drivers to yield to pedestrians and cyclists, the tow truck did not slow down as it headed toward a riverfront tow pound. The truck struck Carl , injuring him severely. He died four days later.

Bicycling was an integral part of Carl and Mary Beth's lives. Their first date was done on bikes and they often took their bikes on vacation. A physician at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, Carl regularly used his bike to commute to the work and to make in-home visits to sick patients.

Rather than forsaking cycling after Carl's death, Mary Beth and her children Zoe and Asher got right back on their bicycles. Perhaps most important, Mary Beth has emerged as an outspoken  and eloquent advocate for New York City cyclists. She now serves on the advisory council for Transportation Alternatives where she is working to create and pass comprehensive complete streets legislation in honor of her husband.

As Transportation Alternatives recently noted in an essay for Streetsblog, more than a year after the death of Eric Ng, the alphabet soup of government agencies responsible for the Hudson River Greenway, have done almost nothing to fix glaring safety  problems along New York City's most important bike route.

Photographer and bike commuter Lars Klove encountered one of the worst of these problems Tuesday evening when a Lexus sedan accelerated past him just yards away from where Carl Nacht, a 56-year-old doctor was killed by an NYPD tow truck in 2006.

Klove sends along the following note describing the incident and photos showing how little is being done to warn motorists not to hang a right on to the Greenway as they exit the Tow Pound.

Yesterday evening, around 5 pm, I was riding northbound on the Hudson River Greenway when I encountered a white Lexus driving southbound. I started waving and yelling at the guy to stop and the driver accelerated and continued southbound. The car then pulled into the lot at 34th Street and exited onto the Westside Highway.

The car had made a right turn out of the NYPD Tow Yard on a red light.

This morning I stopped by the yard to see what kind of signs there were to identify the Greenway to motorists coming out of the Tow Yard. There are none. There is only a cold little orange cone, where the pedestrian lane has a large iron mooring hitch.

Hudson River Greenway near 125th Street.

Photographer Lars Klove writes, "I've always wondered how many people are riding their bicycles to work. This morning the pavement had a thin layer of moisture that counted the bicycles."

This piece was written by Transportation Alternatives:

On December 1, 2006, Eric Ng was riding his bike up the Hudson River Greenway. He was on his way to meet friends. He never made it, because a drunk driver named Eugenio Cidron took his life. After leaving a party at Chelsea Piers, Cidron got behind the wheel of his car and drove it on to the Greenway. Eugenio Cidron sped down the Greenway, a car-free path, for a mile at 60 miles per hour, before crashing into Eric Ng and killing him.

A little over a year ago, the government agencies that have something to say or do with the Hudson River Greenway, along with Transportation Alternatives, convened a task force to develop improvements that will reduce conflicts between drivers and Greenway users, but today little has changed on the ground. The Hudson River Greenway was never designed to have high volumes of cars and trucks crossing it. Regardless of whether or not government knew this when the biking and walking path was built, it knows it now and is often guilty of aiding and abetting the increase on driving across the path.

There are over a dozen City, State and Federal government agencies that have some say in what goes on along the Hudson River between Battery Park and 59^th Street, but no one has taken charge. On the Greenway itself, it's a jurisdictional nightmare. The State DOT designed and built the Greenway and continues to be responsible for path redesigns. The City DOT maintains and times the traffic signals along the Greenway. The Hudson River Park Trust maintains the Greenway path. The NYC Parks Department tries to ensure design consistency between this Greenway and the ones it builds and maintains around the boroughs. There are myriad groups, including the City Economic Development Corp, the MTA, the Passenger Ship Terminal, Chelsea Piers and private ferry operators (who often drive buses across the path), that weigh in on the need for driveways across the Greenway.

Blinding headlights make cycling difficult on a mile-long uptown stretch of the Hudson River Greenway.

Lars Klove is a professional photographer who lives way uptown and uses the Hudson River Greenway to bike to and from his apartment on 183rd Street just about every day. Now that it is getting dark earlier in the evening, Klove and his wife -- she bikes too -- have noticed that blinding motor vehicle headlights make a section of the Greenway between 102nd and 125th Street virtually unusable. The photo above is what Lars and his wife see at night as they try to ride their bikes home in the evening. Below is Lars' letter to John Herrold at the Parks Department:

I'm wondering if you can help me. My wife and I bicycle commute to and from our home at 183rd St to our jobs in Midtown and Downtown. We ride and love the Greenway. It was a big consideration in our choice in moving to Washington Heights. It has become our favorite part of the day.

Now that it gets dark earlier there is a section of our ride home that is very difficult. The section runs from approximately 102nd Street to 125th (sometimes called the Cherry Walk). 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.

A simple solution would be to add a reflective line to the outsides of the lane and in the areas of the grassy islands. Is there anything that can be done here?

Thank you for your time,
Lars Klove

The "Cherry Walk" section of the Greenway in daylight.

Transportation Alternatives' Noah Budnick and David Byrne prior to the Manhattan Borough President's "Manhattan on the Move" conference, October 2006.

Former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne writes about his 30 years of cycling in New York City on his website.  Byrne is an avid bicyclist, and an alternative transportation advocate:

I have been riding a bicycle in New York City for almost 30 years! For transport, not for sport. At first there were only a few of us. Loners, losers, maniacs and nerds. Some of the members of Talking Heads used to make fun of me and say I was going to turn into Pee Wee Herman.

Over the decades things have improved in New York for cyclists — a little. Now there is a wonderful bike path up the Hudson that runs almost the entire length of Manhattan. I use it to commute to and from work. Now there are markings on some streets indicating imaginary bike lanes (imaginary because the traffic and pedestrians often ignore the markings) but they are there in spirit, at least. Someday they will be taken seriously, I have no doubt — when gas hits $10 a gallon.

Now Paris is embarking on a bicycle plan that should make New York envious. A collaboration between business and civic affairs than may just work, as both the city and Deceaux can benefit. Bikes as a means of local transport has worked elsewhere; the mayor of Bogota, Enrique Peñalosa, relieved traffic congestion AND made his city more livable by converting streets to bike/pedestrian use and by adding dedicated bus lanes. Of bike lanes he said, “If an eight year old kid can’t ride on it safely then it isn’t a bike lane.” I don’t remember Paris having very many bike lanes, and the drivers adopt a “survival of the pushiest” approach, as I recall, but that may be changing.

Download her press release here. Coverage elsewhere:

• Quinn Gets Off the Fence (Daily Politics)
• For Council Speaker, It's Easy Being Green (City Room)
• Bloomberg: Quinn Has True Leadership (Daily Politics)

kablooey wrote:

Concerning the NY Waterway bus that hit a cyclist on the Hudson River Greenway recently, I received a letter from Noah Budnick Deputy Director of Transportation Alternatives. He wrote:

Thanks for checking in. In fact, the cyclist's father called me last week to get legal advice. He said that his daughter is doing ok, all things considered. I believe she broke her collar bone (not 100% sure) and scraped up her legs pretty bad.

If you are compelled, it would be great if you could write a quick letter to New York Waterways imploring them to ensure that their bus drivers always yield to people biking and walking on the greenway.

Here's their contact info:

NY Waterway
460 12th Avenue
New York, NY 10018

Best,

Noah S. Budnick
Deputy Director Advocacy
Transportation Alternatives