Labor Day Bonus Pic: Hudson River Greenway Bollard at Work

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.