Inwood

A few weeks ago muni-meters began popping up on the streets of Inwood. Naturally, this made me wonder if the city had considered turning the neighborhood's defunct coin-op meters into bike racks.

It was supposed to happen circa 2005. Then in 2009. Now the city says the restoration of a crumbling block-long staircase that serves as a pedestrian-only street in Inwood will be finished by summer 2013.

After years of delays, a citizen-generated plan for a separated bike path in Upper Manhattan will get an audience tonight.

It's been over three years since residents of Inwood first proposed a separated bike path for Dyckman/200th Street, one that would link Manhattan's east- and west-side Greenways and help foster a safer and more humane environment for neighborhood cyclists and pedestrians. So persistent are advocates of the project, known informally as the "Dyckman Greenway Connector," that they persuaded the notoriously auto-centric Community Board 12 to ask DOT for a feasibility study.

It's no exaggeration to say that, by and large, the streets of Inwood are a free-for-all. With its two free Harlem River bridges, the neighborhood is a prime cut-through for toll-shopping drivers passing to and from the Bronx and Westchester, and is a seasonal haven for preening boom-car owners and speeding motorcyclists. Wide intersections and streets meeting at odd angles make for perilous crossings. Bike lanes are extremely scarce.

Build bike lanes? Manhattan's Community Board 12 doesn't even want to talk about bike lanes.

Last week I took my first cab ride in recent memory, from Midtown home to Inwood. It was Thursday night, and pretty early -- around 10:00 -- when we exited the West Side Highway onto Riverside Drive and made the left to Dyckman/200th Street. As we passed the bustling Mamajuana Cafe, near the corner of Seaman Avenue, its outdoor tables packed as usual, and the cab driver inched among revving motorcycles, honking livery cabs and boom-car drivers who seemed to have no purpose there other than to cruise the block, I muttered something to the effect of "I'm glad we don't live down here."

At a Monday night meeting with the transportation committee of Manhattan Community Board 12, DOT rolled out a slew of much-needed street improvements for Washington Heights and Inwood. Several are still in the preliminary stage, but one major intersection in the Heights is slated for an overhaul this fall.