Bikeable With Difficulty

These bridges have ramps, but other features make cycling unpleasant and/or unsafe.

Goethals (Port Authority)

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Few people are aware that this Staten Island-New Jersey crossing has a bike path on the north side. Indeed, signs on the Jersey side say that cyclists and pedestrians are prohibited on the bridge roadway. Electrical boxes, pipes and signposts narrow the usable space on the pedestrian path, and neither end has curb cuts. The Port Authority should adopt a capital project to rectify current problems in conjunction with replacing the path's concrete deck, which the Authority says it must undertake within 5 years. A simple step would be to move electrical conduit and boxes to the outboard side of the pathway's railing. More complex would be expanding the bridge's structure to provide the framework for a wider path.

Marine Parkway (TBTA)

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This bridge linking southeast Brooklyn with the Rockaways within Gateway National Rec-reation area reopened in May 1991, after an eight-month repair during which cyclists and pedestrians were barred from crossing. Signs state that bikes must be walked across the bridge, presumably because the path is narrow and often busy with pedestrians and people fishing. Still, as noted above, cyclists require less width when they ride than when they walk — a fact generally ignored by traffic officials; the presence of cyclists on this bridge creates no noticeable conflict. TBTA should lift its de jure ban and instead install signs recommending caution and courtesy — especially in light of additional cycling traffic to be generated by the planned Rockaway on-street bikeway loop.

Queensboro, or 59th Street Bridge (DoT)

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In 1979, cyclists and pedestrians were granted exclusive use of this bridge's South Outer Roadway — a metal-mesh lane running along the outer edge of the bridge, separated from other traffic lanes by a network of cables. But whenever major construction work is done on other parts of the bridge, the city diverts motor-vehicle traffic onto the roadway and closes it to bikes and pedestrians. Currently, this regime is in force weekday evenings from 3 to 7 pm. However, the DoT recently revealed plans to close the South Outer Roadway entirely for several years in the mid-1990s, as part of ongoing reconstruction of the Queensboro.

During these times, the City provides a convoy service — a slow-moving escort car that proceeds behind the cyclists, keeping motor traffic safely behind. Although the service runs at nominal 15-20 minute intervals, it frequently deviates from this schedule, frustrating Queens-Manhattan commuters, who, like other cyclists, expect to at least control their own schedule in return for risking life and limb by bike-riding. Some cyclists risk serious accident by riding on the roadway rather than waiting; others give up bike-commuting entirely.

According to the 1992 T.A. survey, half of Queens residents who work in Manhattan don't bike-commute, and of these, slightly over half said that Queensboro Bridge access was a problem. [1] Yet the appropriation of the lane makes little sense; the one additional motor-vehicle lane hardly makes traffic flow more smoothly, since cars back up anyway at the Queens end. (See discussion of the “QB6” in Chapter 18: Air Pollution.)

In addition, the cables that close off the outer roadway from the inner can easily be opened, which motorists sometimes do in order to move between the two paths. This poses a serious threat to cyclists and pedestrians using the outer road at any time, particularly at night.

The DoT has promised a paved, dedicated bike lane for the Queensboro Bridge when the current construction is completed, now scheduled for 1998; until then, the surface remains slippery and dangerous when wet, especially at the frequent expansion joints. Lighting is inadequate and poorly maintained, despite constant monitoring and notification of outages by Transportation Alternatives.

Moreover, bridge access at the Queens end is nightmarish; no signs lead to the outer roadway, and the only way to reach the bridge from the north is to cross a complex network of traffic lanes and then ride against traffic for several hundred feet.

Williamsburg (DoT)

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This long-neglected bridge between the Lower East Side of Manhattan and Greenpoint in Brooklyn closed temporarily to motor traffic in April 1988. The bike and pedestrian promenade was closed from June 1991 to March 1992, with a new deck installed by the city only after intense pressure brought by Wil-liamsburg community groups and Transport-ation Alternatives.

The neighborhood mobilization, combined with increased movement by the NYC DoT away from its old nickel-and-dime approach to bicycle and pedestrian concerns, has borne fruit in the reconstruction plans for the Williamsburg Bridge. Where the original rebuilding plans (scheduled for the late 1990s) called for a single, narrow walkway for shared bicycle/ pedestrian use, revised plans indicate that the DoT will seek to rehabilitate both old promenades, one for exclusive pedestrian use and the other designed for cycling. Meanwhile, to combat the perennial problem of glass and other debris, DoT should install recycling/garbage cans and institute a regular schedule for sweeping the deck. Lighting and solar-powered police boxes would improve security, an especially urgent consideration in light of muggings of over a dozen pedestrians and cyclists in a 2-month period in the 1992-93 winter.

Henry Hudson (TBTA)

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The two bike-pedestrian paths on this bridge over the Harlem River between Manhattan and the Bronx are a microcosm of the checkered state of the bicycling infrastructure in New York City. The upper level has a wide bike-pedestrian path, but it is made impassable by a TBTA office building that straddles the path. The lower level is bikeable, with a recently resurfaced path, although stairs and the narrow pathway make bike access more of a challenge than necessary.

As part of a pending reconstruction of the office building, TBTA has allocated funds to rebuild the Henry Hudson's upper walkway. In addition, the Department of City Planning is considering use of the upper path for the Hudson River Valley Greenway. However, because of concern over mountain bikes entering environmentally sensitive areas of Inwood Park, north of the bridge, the City Department of Parks & Recreation is considering restricting bicycle access in the area around the bridge (notwithstanding the fact that a major highway already bisects the park).

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