Eyes on the Street

Eyes on the Street: Washington Heights Gets Safe Greenway Connection

Two months after winning support from Manhattan Community Board 12, a safer connection to the Hudson River Greenway is now in place at 181st Street.

By Noah Kazis

2:45 PM EST on November 28, 2011

Two months after winning support from Manhattan Community Board 12, a safer connection to the Hudson River Greenway is now in place at 181st Street.

Before, Riverside Drive north of 181st Street served as a one-way highway on-ramp, forcing cyclists exiting the greenway to either ride against traffic or dismount. Cars, too, drove the wrong way to get back on local streets without entering the Henry Hudson Parkway, creating unsafe conditions.

Now, DOT has turned a short stretch of Riverside back into a two-way street with shared lane markings painted in both directions. At the cost of a few parking spaces, this critical Upper Manhattan greenway entrance has been made safer and more easily accessible.

The changes check off one item on Community Board 12’s list of requested bike infrastructure improvements, which it passed unanimously this July. Perhaps some high-quality bike lanes for Upper Manhattan will be next.

Noah Kazis

Noah joined Streetsblog as a New York City reporter at the start of 2010. When he was a kid, he collected subway paraphernalia in a Vignelli-map shoebox. Before coming to Streetsblog, he blogged at TheCityFix DC and worked as a field organizer for the Obama campaign in Toledo, Ohio. Noah graduated from Yale University, where he wrote his senior thesis on the class politics of transportation reform in New York City. He lives in Morningside Heights.