LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

We can do better

Posted

To the editor:

I attended the first DOT meeting on the Broadway plan two years ago, and at least one table (and possibly two) mentioned protected bike lanes as worthwhile additions.

The idea came from CB8 residents, not from DOT.

Although I was not at those tables, I absolutely support — and have always supported — a network of protected bike lanes that reaches to the downtown. Such a network does not have to involve every street, but only those that make sensible connections: Mosholu to the west, Jerome and Bailey avenues; West 225th Street. Built environments can always be rebuilt, and it may be worthwhile to allow for test cases.

Let’s face it, there are multiple, ample connections to Broadway that cannot be matched elsewhere. There’s a connection to the West 242nd Street transportation hub. A connection to the East Coast Greenway in the park via Broadway that leads to the 4 train and Mosholu Greenway. 

There are quiet streets that are part of the ECG that lead west and south, and other quiet east-west streets to the north that link to Broadway.

There’s even a connection to the Getty Square Greenway, projected to be built soon. That greenway will travel down from Yonkers and end at Broadway after cutting a swathe through the northwest forest of Van Cortlandt Park.

Community Board 8 already approved the idea when they approved the master plan for the park in 2014.

There’s also a connection to an already existing paved path that runs alongside the Deegan from Yonkers to West 240th Street, which is repeatedly ignored by the park and the institutions in the park.

On some of the negative commentary, people have a way of adjusting to different street environments, and that includes how they cross streets and open car doors.

Broadway-lined businesses and nearby residents do not carry more weight than other residents. The park is where some of us spend multiple hours during the week, and where the issues besetting Broadway are actively experienced.

Lastly, the Putnam Trail was vaguely brought up as supposedly having more connections than Broadway. The trail has not east-west axes, and only limited access at Yonkers Avenue and West 240th. It cannot get someone from Palisades Avenue to Lehman College, or to playing fields next to Jerome Avenue.

The trail cannot provide DOT functions that a potential network using already-built environments can provide. Those connections are in every geographical direction — and hopefully, all the way to Manhattan.

SUZANNE CORBER

Suzanne Corber,

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