Greenways

Union Turnpike, running 10 miles through the midsection of Queens and across the border to Nassau County, is one of the borough's most unsafe places to walk or bike. Now, a group of eastern Queens residents is looking to extend an existing walking and biking path through state- and city-owned property parallel to the multi-lane road.

By this time next year, people walking and biking across the Pulaski Bridge between Brooklyn and Queens won't have to share a single narrow path. With a new, two-way protected bike lane spanning the bridge, cyclists will have a safe route and pedestrians will have the existing 8.5-foot wide pathway exclusively for walking. No more fighting over scraps of street space.

Last night, Brooklyn Community Board 1's transportation committee unanimously recommended the board support a DOT project [PDF] to calm traffic on a deadly stretch of Kent Avenue between Clymer Street and the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. The project also upgrades a link in the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway to a two-way protected bike lane.

In 1991, Governor Mario Cuomo signed the Hudson River Valley Greenway Act, setting in motion the design and construction of a continuous walking and biking route along the river, from Manhattan to Saratoga County. More than two decades later, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council -- the NYC-area regional planning agency -- has come up with a preferred route for the greenway through the Bronx and parts of Yonkers, which would fill the gap between the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway and the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail in Westchester County.

Since May, Hudson River Greenway users have been detoured from the waterside route between 133rd and 135th Streets to 12th Avenue, which is often full of trucks unloading at the Fairway supermarket. The closure, which signs on the greenway said would end at the end of last month, has been extended through the end of February without explanation.

The Bronx River Greenway has given many South Bronx residents a place to feel comfortable biking, but the streets nearby are often filled with speeding drivers navigating sometimes-confusing intersections. A project adding bike lanes, curb extensions, and lane striping aimed to fix that -- and since the end of the summer residents have seen some of the results. An anonymous reader who lives in Soundview and commutes by bike through the area sent in some photos showing the changes.

The next phase of Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway construction on Flushing Avenue will build a raised two-way bikeway and planted buffers alongside the Brooklyn Navy Yard, creating a safer, more appealing environment on what has already become a much-used bike route. Here's a look at the recently unveiled design from NYC DOT, the Department of Design and Construction, and project consultant Parsons.

This morning, U.S. DOT announced the winners in the latest round of its highly-competitive TIGER grant program. While upstate New York won grants for two projects -- a highway teardown in Rochester and a complete streets project in Olean -- New York City missed out, with applications for ferry improvements, a greenway connection in the Bronx, and the redesign of a busy intersection in Downtown Brooklyn failing to make the cut.

The East River Greenway, stepchild of Manhattan's bikeway network, currently consists of segments beneath, beside, and sometimes even above the FDR Drive. A report issued by New Yorkers for Parks yesterday acknowledged that East Siders awaiting a continuous path will have to wait decades before they can walk or bike on a full-length East River Greenway. In the meantime, an uncoordinated series of plans, studies, and development projects attempt to piece together sections of the route.