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A City Hall Park Bike Path Despite CB1 Rejection
CB1 members and neighbors of the Lower Manhatten park were stunned June 30 to find that the DOT had installed a bike path through the heart of the park’s quiet northern walkway, despite the board’s overwhelming rejection of the plan less than two weeks earlier. Members of the board lashed out at the city, and in particular, the Bloomberg administration, after discovering their vote had apparently fallen on deaf ears. “Typical Bloomberg,” said CB1 member Paul Hovitz. “He’s really not interested in community input unless it supports his position.” In June, the DOT unveiled plans for a bike path connecting Hudson River Park to the Brooklyn Bridge. The proposed path was to run the length of Warren Street from the river to the bridge, with a short, connecting jaunt through the north end of City Hall Park, between City Hall and the Tweed Courthouse. After seeing the plans, CB1 voted not to support the plan. Two weeks later, the path—indicated by markers set in the pavement and several small signs—was installed anyway. Julie Menin, CB1’s chairwoman, said she was shocked. “We couldn’t have been more emphatic in that we strongly objected to the [path],” Menin said. “To do this in, really, our only open space in that area doesn’t make any sense at all.” Menin said she would raise those objections with Luis Sanches, the DOT’s Lower Manhattan Borough Commissioner. “They have to reconsider this,” Menin said. “It poses too much of a safety risk to pedestrians and children playing in the park.” Skip Blumberg, whose Friends of City Hall Park was instrumental in getting the park path reopened in 2007, said he wanted to meet with city officials as soon as possible to resolve the bike path issue. “We’re hoping the mayor is a good neighbor,” Blumberg said, adding that he had requested a meeting with Deputy Mayor Patricia Harris. “We want to sit down and deal with them in a reasonable way.” Specifically, Blumberg said he wants the city to require cyclists to dismount and walk their bikes through the park. Last month, DOT officials seemed to entertain that possibility when they appeared before the board’s Seaport/Civic Center Committee. The department has since said that a dismount rule will not be implemented in the park. Now Blumberg said city officials could find themselves on the business end of organized protests, or worse. “We always have a legal option, and we’ll go to the press, and we’ll follow with a lawsuit,” Blumberg said. “A tornado of protests is swarming, and it’s hard to know what the result would be. We know that City Hall is capable of action, and we hope we can avoid a big spectacle.” “This is part of a pattern of disrespect,” he added, referring to an as-yet unfulfilled agreement between his group and the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation, which provides a number of amenities for park users in exchange for the city’s closure of more than 2 acres of the park for security reasons. “It’s very disappointing.” Laura Braddock, who lives three blocks from the park, said she couldn’t remember the last time the city had rolled out such an ill-conceived plan, and worried the path initiative could trigger a public backlash against the very cyclists the city says it is trying to protect. “It’s the dumbest idea I’ve heard in a while,” Braddock said. “It’s just nuts to have the park overloaded like this. It’s going to turn more people against bikes.” When the DOT first presented the idea of a bike path in the park, many worried about the possibility of injuries, both to pedestrians and cyclists. Now that the path is in place, frequent users of the park say injuries are no longer a possibility; they’re an inevitability.
According to the DOT, Chambers Street has the most bike accidents of any Downtown cross street between Worth and Barclay. Most cyclists crossing Lower Manhattan from Hudson River Park use Chambers Street, which is too challenging for the average rider, DOT officials said. With the park path in place and the Warren Street leg of the bike route slated to be completed sometime in the next few weeks, DOT spokesman Seth Solomonow said the department is counting on success in other parts of the city to replicate itself in City Hall Park. “Shared spaces like this are found elsewhere in the city and in public areas around the country and the world,” Solomonow said. “We will monitor the changes and make any necessary adjustments, with feedback from the community."
Despite assurances of safety, the consensus among park users seemed to be that the path could only result in one thing. “I think it’s a bad mistake, and I think they’re going to have a lot of accidents on their hands,” daily parkgoer and nearby Broadway resident Norma Fontane said. “A lot of kids are going to get hurt, and the elderly, they can’t get out of the way fast enough. This is not the right avenue for them. They’re going to have a lot of problems, and maybe a lot of lawsuits for the city.” Fontane was even more incensed when told the department had ignored her local community board’s recommendation. “How could [the DOT] do that,” she wondered as she fed a small flock of pigeons against the southern fence of the walkway. “That’s not right. It’s like the President. He just does whatever he wants, and we don’t have a choice, do we?”
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