Landmarks

Happy Bike to Work Day: The Parks Department has repaired the Hudson River Greenway sinkhole.

It's been almost a year since we first reported on a sinkhole eating away at the Hudson River Greenway just north of 181st Street. The Parks Department added barricades, an old board, and finally filled it with gravel last month while it figured out "a long-term solution."

Last June, we reported on a sinkhole in the Hudson River Greenway just north of 181st Street in Washington Heights. The Parks Department, which manages the path, said it had cordoned off the hole and was assessing the situation. As of yesterday, nothing much had changed in ten months -- except the hole has filled with leaves and grown slightly larger, swallowing more of the greenway path along with it. Now, the Parks Department says it has filled in the hole as a temporary measure.

Last year Mayor Bloomberg announced that the long-awaited restoration of the car-free High Bridge would be completed "by 2014." Work began soon after, and the Parks Department tells Streetsblog the rehab is slated to wrap before the year is over.

Yesterday, the the Port Authority board authorized a $1.03 billion rehabilitation of the George Washington Bridge's suspension cables that will also fix problem spots for cyclists and pedestrians using its shared paths. But the upgraded biking and walking routes will still be two feet narrower than the recommended width for shared-use paths.

This week kicked off with news that Speaker Sheldon Silver would remove Governor Andrew Cuomo's $40 million transit raid from the Assembly's budget plan. Today comes word [PDF] that the State Senate has followed suit, rejecting the transit raid in its own budget resolution.

After years of planning and advocacy, an effort to improve the dangerous, ugly asphalt expanse on the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge is set to take a big step forward tonight. Community Board 2 is meeting to vote on a resolution in support of a plan to expand space for walking and biking, realign car lanes, and add trees [PDF] that cleared its transportation committee with a unanimous 7-0 vote last month. Construction on the first phase is on track to begin as soon as the end of this year.

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.