New Bike/Pedestrian Path Over the Verrazano?
The Park Slope Courier
By Helen Klein

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For bikers and walkers, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge remains, for most of the year, frustratingly inaccessible. 

What the span needs, according to City Councilmember Marty Golden, is a special lane for pedestrians and bicyclists that would serve to connect shorefront paths in both Brooklyn and Staten Island--and which could serve as part of a citywide recreational trail connecting the five boroughs. 

"We've wanted this for too many years," noted Golden. "I think it's important, and it's long overdue. It was part of the bridge's original design, but they decided against it when the bridge was built. In hindsight, I think that was a mistake. They should have proceeded with the walkway, and given bike riders and pedestrians the opportunity to use the bridge. It's the right thing to do." 

According to Golden, adding a pedestrian/bicycle lane to the bridge would benefit residents of both Brooklyn and Staten Island. "It would allow people to enjoy exercise and also go back and forth between the two boroughs without using a motor vehicle," he pointed out. "You could run or bike across the Verrazano Bridge and along the south or north shore of Staten Island, maybe going along to see a baseball game with the Staten Island Yankees." 

Golden pointed out that the city is currently planning to install a walkway on the Williamsburg Bridge. "If the Department of Transportation can secure the funding to enhance the Williamsburg Bridge," he said, "I seek their support in doing the same for the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Since 1964, this has been an idea and a suggestion, and I firmly believe that now is the time to make this a reality." 

Noah Budnick of Transportation Alternatives (TA) agreed. Pointing out that TA had contracted a feasibility study as early as 1976, and that the city had done its own feasibility study in the early 1990s, Budnick said that the results of the studies had been positive. 

The city study, he went on, "Basically said that we should go ahead with the paths. It said that twin pathways, one for bikes and one for pedestrians, on the north and south sides of the bridge, could be constructed for $26 million. 

"We're in full support of the paths being built on the bridge," Budnick added. "The feasibility study indicated that it could be done for a modest cost. And, the importance of the path is that it would provide a link for Staten Island and Brooklyn residents on foot or on bikes to be able to cross between those two boroughs. Now, there's no way for a cyclist to get between them. You can take a bus, but there's no bike access on the bus. Bike access is something the city should go ahead with till the pathway is constructed." 

Indeed, Budnick added, bike and pedestrian pathways on the bridge would provide a key link in the city's Greenway system. 

"If the path is built on the Verrazano," Budnick pointed out, "it would actually connect with an existing part of the Greenway, one of the larger pieces, the Shore Parkway path, which runs from Bay Ridge to Bath Beach. It then picks up again at Sheepshead Bay, and then continues all the way almost to JFK."

But, not everybody is chomping at the bit to see the pathway constructed. Lawrence Stelter, chairperson of Community Board 10's Traffic and Transportation Committee, recalled that the issue of a walkway over the Verrazano had come up about 10 years ago, and said he was troubled by the logistics presented by such a pathway--the need to make sure the pathway is handicapped-accessible, the added expense of creating two paths, one for bikes and one for pedestrians, and security along the length of the span.

"It might be nice for people who ride bicycles," Stelter noted, "but my concern is policing such a long span. The walkway would be almost two miles long. In an emergency, that's a long way. I've walked across the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges and they're not nearly as long. 

"And, now, you had the added issue of the whole terrorist thing," he went on. "The bridge is a strategic vantage point, at the entrance to the harbor. It seems to me that everyone who walks across the bridge would have to be checked." 

A spokesperson for MTA Bridges & Tunnels echoed Stelter's concern, "Due to the events of 9/11, we have a number of security concerns and fiscal constraints we are operating under," said Frank Pascual. "So this is not something we are looking at."

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