This greenway may be more of a blue highway.
Puddles lined the Hudson River Greenway amid rainy weather this week, forcing riders to slow or swerve or else accept a cold, grimy splash of curbside cocktail.
Ranging in in size from 30 to 150 square feet, the puddles appeared to be the result of poor engineering and design choices that leave water with nowhere to go at greenway pinch points.
“A customer here said they went through a puddle and then hit a pothole they couldn't see. It totally messed them up. They had to go to the hospital.” said Christian Farrell, owner of Waterfront Bicycle Shop, which is located across the street from the greenway by Pier 45.
Over 7,000 people ride the greenway each day, making it the busiest bike path in the country. Even in pouring rain on Wednesday, Streetsblog observed dozens of people biking on the route.
Reached for comment, a rep for the New York State Department of Transportation, which operates the greenway, told Streetsblog that the agency "is aware of the ponding issues and is looking into the matter.”
Greenway users who spoke to Streetsblog said the puddles were not simply an issue of comfort but safety. Bikes aren’t at risk of hydroplaning like cars, but can easily lose their balance in the wet morass.
“As you get toward the Intrepid [at W. 45th Street], yeah, that area where there's a lot of, also, foot traffic, and then the roads are slippery because of the puddles," said Ted, who frequently bikes on the greenway but declined to share his last name.
Of the nine greenway puddles Streetsblog observed on Wednesday, the largest sat on a stretch of the path shared by cyclists and pedestrians between 54th and 55th streets. This 150-square-foot sixth Great Lake was so vast, so deep, and so unavoidable that Streetsblog was tempted to call in a glaciologist to identify which glacier was moving through Midtown. Some pedestrians resorted to freestyle parkour, hopping into an adjacent construction site and back onto the path to avoid the pool of rainwater, while cyclists attempted various different entry points with the futile hope of not getting too wet.
While some of the puddles appeared to have formed from pooling rainwater, others had compounding factors. At 40th Street, drivers turning into the NY Waterway terminal routinely sent water from the turning lane into the greenway and crosswalk, obstructing access to the curb ramp onto the sidewalk.
The greenway's relatively narrow width — especially compared to the many lanes for cars right next to it — exacerbates the impact of the puddles on cyclists and pedestrians. In 2022, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine called for the bike path to be widened by taking away space from cars.
State DOT, which owns and operates the greenway south of 59th Street, has set out to study potential changes to the path — beginning with a forum on May 20 at the Javitz Center.
It's unclear whether drainage issues are on NYSDOT's agenda — but if they matter to you, the workshop is the place to make your voice heard.
RSVP here for the meeting, which runs from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Here's our map of the puddles on the Hudson River Greenway:
