Safety last.
The Parks Department will close off a mile-and-a-half stretch of the busiest bike path in America for six months, sending cyclists onto dangerous streets of the Upper West Side, with astoundingly little warning, starting today.
The agency will shutter the popular Hudson River Greenway between W. 100th and W. 125th streets through March to repair a section of the bike and pedestrian trail known as the Cherry Walk — just weeks after shutting down another part further uptown in Washington Heights due to a returning sinkhole.
The short notice startled Manhattanites who rely on the greenway that carries some 7,000 cyclists daily. The city must sort out a way to keep reliable and safe bike paths open during these overhauls, the same way officials do when a road closes down to cars, said one Inwood commuter.
"If we want this to be a real transportation network … we’ve got to treat it with the same kind of urgency to maintain that reliability of service," said Allegra LeGrande. "That’s what makes it a transportation network and not just a recreational pathway."
The $1.5-million repair project was supposed to start last year and only last three to four months, reported the West Side Rag. The current schedule is a year late — and puts the vital bikeway out of commission for least half a year.
The Parks Department in recent weeks sectioned off the deteriorating 1.25-mile leg of the greenway between W. 181st and Dyckman streets for the second time in as many years. That's because of a gaping sinkhole opened up again around W. 187th Street, following shoddy $1.2 million patch job that closed it off in late 2022.
That work has twice now sent cyclists onto a risky route through the streets instead of the safe greenway.
"They’re [Parks] always just playing catchup whac-a-mole to try and keep everything functional," said LeGrande. "It’s just not acceptable."
With two sections closed off, cyclists now have to navigate crash-prone streets from Inwood to the Upper West Side on speedways like Broadway and Riverside Drive, because the city has refused to repurpose road space for protected bike paths.
"Riverside Drive has the potential of being a fabulous bikeway and it would really relieve all of the conflict between bicyclists and walkers on the greenway," said Upper West Sider Peter Frishauf, who organized an open street on W. 103rd Street and said he rides the greenway almost daily.
In Washington Heights, uptowners and experts like “Gridlock” Sam Schwartz have repeatedly urged officials take one lane of the Henry Hudson Parkway that runs next to the greenway that chronically caves in.
On the Cherry Walk, Parks officials plan to repave the asphalt damaged by bumps and cracks due to tree roots, and restripe the markings, they told the local community board two years ago.
However, without a safe and protected bike lane, cyclists will face the dangers of traffic violence. On the detour, there have been 76 reported crashes injuring 47 people last year — nearly one person hurt a week.
The Cherry Walk already underwent repairs to its shoreline from damage from Superstorm Sandy in late 2020, and those fixes faced delays and poor signage on the detour until it finally reopened in early 2021.
"You were just thrown onto Riverside Drive with no signage to motorists to share the road," said Frishauf. "This is very worrisome. Based on the way this was introduced without any kind of notice, it looks already like it’s very poorly thought through."
Parks is now going back again to resurface the entire path and smoothen its cracks and bumps, according to spokesperson Kelsey Jean-Baptiste.
The agency has a poor track record of maintaining its greenways in usable shape, letting crucial arteries decay, like Ocean Parkway in southern Brooklyn and others across the five boroughs, which one greenway advocate blamed on lack of funding.
"They just are in a situation where they don’t have the funding and they don’t have the robust program to keep up with all the areas in the city where rough riding surfaces are a problem," said Brian Hedden of the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative, which coordinates the citywide NYC Greenways Coalition.
Jean-Baptiste said the "collaborated" with the Department of Transportation, though that collaboration did not result in a protected route for cyclists.
"The Cherry Walk reconstruction is a long-awaited project that cyclists and the community have been requesting for years," said Kelsey Jean-Baptiste in a statement. "To ensure the safest cycling and walking path for our patrons, we collaborated with DOT to develop a detour plan."
