Eyes on the Street: Much of the 158th St. Greenway Connector Is Missing

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158th Street looking east toward Riverside Drive.

A utility crew ripped up 158th Street where a two-way bike lane connects to the Hudson River Greenway and hasn’t re-installed the bike lane after patching up the asphalt.

A reader sent us photos of the bikeway, which is supposed to be a green, two-way route between Broadway and the Henry Hudson Parkway, separated from car traffic by plastic posts. A ramp at the western end of the bike lane leads to the greenway.

The bike lane was installed last year as part of a package of bike and pedestrian improvements linking the greenway and the car-free High Bridge.

We asked DOT why this happened and when it would be fixed. DOT said it “is aware of the condition of the bike lane at 158th Street, where utility work was recently done, and are working with the contractor to remedy the situation.”

Without the paint, our tipster said, the bike lane is being used for parking, like it was before the plastic posts were installed.

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What the bikeway used to look like. Photo: Alec Melman
What the bikeway is supposed to look like. Photo: Alec Melman
  • walks bikes drives

    I noticed this while driving up the West Side Highway this weekend. As far as I could see, from the highway until I lost sight of the road under the overpass, was filled with parked cars. I can’t believe utility companies aren’t fined ridiculous amounts of money when they don’t do a perfect job of reparing the streets. It seems that the vast majority of pot holes are in their repaving, rather than the main street. And their “fixed” trenches are always along the edge of the street where bike tires have more contact than car tires.

  • Joe R.

    This has been a major problem in NYC forever. We’re always ripping up streets to do utility repairs. Apparently some large percentage of people who do these repairs are incompetent so we need to do the same repair over and over. There’s also little coordination between when we do major planned utility projects and when the streets get repaved. It’s almost a guarantee it seems that a street which hasn’t had utility work done for decades will suddenly be ripped to shreds six months after it’s freshly repaved. And then you have the general incompetence of the “repair”, if it even merits that label. It’s usually more like they just dumped asphalt from a dump truck more or less in the trench, then it hardened into whatever shape it landed in. The “regular” street repavings aren’t much better. Newly repaved streets have paving not flush with manhole covers, ripples, etc.

    NYC needs a long term plan on both how to accommodate utility work without having streets perpetually in third world condition, and also how to rebuild streets so they last long term. We seemingly haven’t been able to do either for decades but the problem has gotten much worse in the last 15 years or so.

  • SSkate

    As much as we b*tch about DOT and NYPD around here, I have to say that ConEd, VZ and others piss me off as much if not more so. Perhaps it’s because I’m an inline skater and very sensitive to asphalt conditions, especially changeable asphalt conditions, but man, sometimes I think ConEd is the enemy.

  • Joe R.

    It’s just as bad if you’re on a bike, especially one with narrow tires like mine.

  • Bluewndrpwrmlk96

    Utility crews absolutely suck at repaving. And they love to do it especially when streets have been recently repaved. Not surprised by this outcome.

  • Why is it impossible for utility companies and the City to coordinate paving and repair work? And why aren’t the utility companies held accountable for how they leave the street once their work is done?

  • Frank Kotter

    They do what is expected of them. A contractor, by sound business sense, will do the allowable minimum. This is not their faul but that of city officials and ultimately voters who bought the ideology that we will all by fine as long as we get government out of the way of business.

  • Correct. In a sane world, we wouldn’t need to hire contractors to do these things, as our various public agencies would have fully-manned in-house repair and construction divisions. This would result in better oversight and quality control.

    (But in our twisted world, if we had agencies that were adequately staffed for ongoing maintenance and for new construction, weasels would complain about the salaries and benefits of these public-sector workers, despite the improved quality of life that these workers would be providing us with.)

  • Vooch

    sorry but disagree, the quality would be about the same – dreadful. The costs would be 3-10 Times greater. Anything the state touches is invariably a expensive failure. Anything.

  • Vooch

    Joe,

    get some 35mms for One of your Rides 🙂

  • Vooch

    They are held accountable – by a City inspector LOL

  • Frank Kotter

    Dear Vooch. Infrastructure projects in America cost about twice that of Europe.

    http://theweek.com/articles/449646/why-expensive-build-bridge-america

    The mantra of private is cheaper, faster, better does not fit every situation and Americans have been duped. What makes projects cheaper, faster, better is a very well paid and competent bureaucracy that has the motivation to limit graft and the power of the builders lobby and to make sure they are getting the best value.

  • Vooch

    corruption among unaccountable bureacrats Is certainly endemic in the US and occurs at quite epic levels these days. Central Planning always fails.

    Leviathan consumes 45% of GDP these days. In 1912, it consumed only 7% of GDP and we had police, government schools, a multimodel Transporation system, Electricity, telephones, Falling prices, skyrocketing wages, and a shortage of labor.

    everything the State touches is more expensive and of lower quality. Everything.

    https://tucker.liberty.me

  • Frank Kotter

    Oh, sorry, I thought we were having a big boy conversation about the cost and quality of infrastructure but you are apparently up late in Cleveland.

    Sorry, not worth my time.

  • Vooch

    we are having a big boy discussion about infrastructure, and you presented your faith in central planing using unaccountable state employees to build infrastructure.

    My response was the State always fails in everything it does.

    name One activity the State engages in sucessfully

  • Nonsense. (And dangerous nonsense, at that.) “The state” is nothing more than us.

  • Kevin Love

    But Margaret Thatcher said, “There is no such thing as society.”

  • Vooch

    nope – the state are the people that gleefully murdered Eric Garner because he didn’t pay a fifty cent tax on a loosie.

  • All that shows is that there are plenty of fascists amongst us who approve of that sort of thing.

    The state will perpetrate whatever horrors the community will tolerate. And it will do whatever good the community demands.

    In other words, the state is just a tool, a means of carrying out the public will. It has no character of its own. When the state goes wrong, the fault lies with the community. And so does the power to correct things.

    A general anti-state position is ridiculous, and has no place in serious discussion. It is fit only for clueless anarchists (who don’t understand that the complete lack of a state cedes control of society entirely to corporations) and for evil libertarians (who understand this perfectly well).

  • Vooch

    you honestly believe there is a difference between

    national socialism
    and
    international socialism

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