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.

From Streetsblogger Urbanis:

[The] West Harlem Piers bicycle path, connecting the Hudson River Greenway between 135th and 125th Streets, has not still opened (after a promised opening of May or June this year). The completion of this link will allow cyclists an entire off-street route from Dyckman Street to Battery Park; currently, cyclists must exit the Greenway at 135th Street and ride in traffic along Riverside Drive to 125th Street. Even worse, while there is a bike lane provided for southbound commuters (which is a favorite parking spot for unloading trucks), no bike lane exists for northbound commuters.

The site remains fenced off but it has looked completed for months -- why the delay?

We put in several calls and e-mail messages to DOT and Parks, but no one we've found can tell us when the fencing will come down. A September story in the Columbia Spectator says the project is on hold due to "problems constructing a railing."

As part of our back to school coverage, and in light of news from the past week, we thought it would be a good time to report on programs aimed at keeping kids safe on city streets.

In addition to its ever-so-slowly evolving Safe Routes to School effort (three years in, improvements are soon expected to be completed at 12 out of 135 "high priority" schools), the Department of Transportation trumpets Safety City as a cornerstone of the agency's commitment to curbing the leading cause of preventable childhood death among city kids between the ages of 5 and 14. An educational program for school children that combines classroom instruction with outdoor lessons on simulated life-sized streetscapes, six Safety City campuses are located throughout the boroughs.

Negotiating West Harlem's narrow sidewalks, active road construction sites, and crosswalk signals so short that adult classroom volunteers had to block auto traffic with their bodies as kids scrambled across the street, a group of third graders made its way to the W. 158th Street Safety City last spring for a day of so-called "hands-on experience."

Safety City instructors must surely see a lot of unruly children, as a good chunk of classroom time was devoted to preemptive behavior management. Rules were spelled out repeatedly, and threats issued ad nauseam, before each activity. But as it turned out, much of the inevitable talking and fidgeting was necessitated by DOT teaching methods. As one instructor chatted casually with the students' parents, and flirted with their teachers, another led the kids in a game of "Jeopardy." Though the name of the game was appropriate, given the subject matter, the emphasis was on points, prizes and platitudes. (Question: "Cross the street how?" Answer: "Safely.") Kids who became overly excited by the prospect of taking home a DOT pencil or whistle had to be calmed down repeatedly. One instructor prodded the children into paying attention by warning them that, if they didn't, "I will be reading about you in the paper."

That admonishment, more than anything, epitomizes Safety City's message to kids: Streets belong to motor vehicles, and humans use them at their own risk.

The children were directed to memorize a chant, to be recited mentally at every corner: "Stop, look and listen. Make a safe decision." The sloganeering was reinforced by the "Safety City Rap," a repetitive "Barney"-esque video that seemed to serve mostly as a lunchtime babysitting tool. Not once during the day were students told of the rightful place of pedestrians in the urban environment, and not once was auto traffic depicted as anything other than an uncontrollable force of nature.

The class eventually moved outside to the fenced Safety City streetscape, where every sidewalk was clear of obstructions, every crosswalk was freshly painted, every pedestrian signal worked perfectly, and no speeding vehicles could be found. The whole of outdoor instruction consisted of kids (1) crossing a crosswalk in small groups, with hands in the air to make themselves visible; (2) lining up to ride bicycles one at a time around a sidewalk loop, stopping and dismounting to walk the bikes across the street; and (3) filing into the back seat of a car to learn how to fasten a seatbelt.

At the end of the long day, the children left the immaculate streets of Safety City for the untidy reality of W. 158th, each of them equipped with a bright yellow DOT goodie bag. Lumbering uphill, as they approached the first of many hazardous intersections they would encounter on the way back to school, they dutifully raised their hands.