Greenways

Above 34th Street, the East Side of Manhattan is unforgiving for cyclists, without any real provision to ride safely and quickly. The one dedicated path for bicycling, the East River Greenway, is barely usable for practical trips -- the gap between 38th Street and 63rd Street being the most prominent of several flaws. On a ride organized by Transportation Alternatives this Sunday, Michael Auerbach of neighborhood group Upper Green Side led a group of about 20 cyclists, including City Council Member Dan Garodnick, on a tour of the greenway path to take in its pinch points, shoddy surfaces, and other shortcomings. Here's a short photo tour of the trip from 6th Street to 63rd Street, with an assist from TA's Kim Martineau.

A vital link in the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway is open, as a path through Brooklyn Bridge Park for pedestrians and cyclists nears completion. Though the park is still far from complete, the path cuts straight through the construction, connecting Pier 1, just below the Brooklyn Bridge itself, and Pier 6, at Atlantic Avenue. 

We've got a few different bikeway-related reader submissions that have come over the wire recently. First up, Dave "Paco" Abraham sends this picture of a two-way barrier-separated bikeway going in on Furman Street by the downtown Brooklyn waterfront. Furman is on the route of the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway, and with Brooklyn Bridge Park opening piece by piece, it's already pretty common to see people biking in both directions on this three-lane speedway underneath the BQE cantilever.

Residents of Northern Manhattan and the west Bronx have been waiting more than three years for the re-opening of the bike-ped path on the lower deck of the Henry Hudson Bridge. When the moment finally came earlier this summer, however, cyclists got a nasty surprise: MTA Bridges and Tunnels still won't allow biking on the bridge.

The New York City Parks Department has come up with a striking new method to demean pedestrians and cyclists and disrupt the public right-of-way.

On Sunday, a group of city officials and East Side electeds made their case for a deal to close the gap in the East River Greenway, addressing a full auditorium at the Schottenstein Cultural Center on East 34th Street. The deal has several moving parts, but the major takeaway was that the Bloomberg administration and a large group of legislators want to make the greenway happen.

If you want to close the Midtown greenway gap, make your voice heard this Sunday. For 33 blocks in Midtown, Manhattan’s East River Greenway disappears, forcing cyclists to detour onto some of the most traffic-choked and dangerous streets in the city. That’s a major deterrent to cycling on the East Side. While bike lanes planned … Continued

Construction is set to begin on the first stages of the South Bronx Greenway this summer, marking the first tangible results of a community-based, bottom-up campaign for more livable streets. The project will bring safer walking and biking and much-needed green space to neighborhoods where people-oriented streets are in short supply.

The current concept for the Flushing Avenue segment of the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway footprint calls for converting the street to one-way westbound traffic flow. Two-way vehicle traffic, say DOT planners, will create conflicts that endanger cyclists and pedestrians as trucks and cars turn left into the Brooklyn Navy Yard. At Wednesday night's public meeting on the project, the one-way conversion didn't sit well with most people who showed up, prompting the DOT team to say they'll take a second look at how the street can be configured.