Vannie footbridge receives millions

After years of residents’ lobbying for a foot bridge to connect both halves of Van Cortlandt Park — long divided by the Major Deegan Expressway — city and state officials announced funding to make the project a reality on May 8.

The Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) and the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) are contributing $4 million each, with another $4 million coming from the Assembly thanks to efforts by local elected officials.

Previous pushes for the park included a letter drive organized by Community Board 8 and a demonstration at the site of the proposed park last year. Activists criticized city agencies as reneging on a promise to build the bridge, which was proposed in 1999 along with dozens of other parks projects as a form of compensation for locating the gigantic Croton Water Filtration Plant in the Bronx.

Bob Fanuzzi, a CB 8 member and longtime advocate of the foot bridge, said, “If anyone ever dreamed of holding their government accountable, this is like a fantasy come true.”

The northwest Bronx’s Councilman Andrew Cohen, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, Rep. Eliot Engel and state Sen. Jeff Klein worked with colleagues and city agencies to pull the funding off.

“The elected officials did this so well because they used the public protest... and were able to do very constructive, low-key work knowing what their support was,” Mr. Fanuzzi said.

DEP Commissioner Emily Lloyd — long criticized by local advocates for her handling of the foot bridge, the Croton plant, the connected Jerome Park Reservoir and other issues — said, “I think that projects frequently take a long time to get funded, to get everyone to agree on how they’re going to be done, and the important thing is that they do get done.”

DPR Commissioner Mitchell Silver said authorities will seek community input for the foot bridge’s design. He added that groundbreaking will be in spring 2017, with completion expected in spring 2019.