River-to-River Bike Path on 72nd St. Draws Heat at CB7 Meeting

The Fourth of July may be months away, but fireworks were flying on the night of April 14 on the Upper West Side as a subcommittee of Community Board 7 met to discuss a protected two-way bike lane proposed for the north side of 72^nd St. as part of a proposed river-to-river connect.

A community board on the East Side had heard from the DOT last week on the bike lane which, if ultimately approved, will run from the Hudson River through Central Park to the East River; although plans on the East Side did not appear to be fully developed.

The DOT insisted that improving crosstown cycling connections was a key need identified in the 2024 Central Park Drives Safety & Circulation Study. Many seniors and local business owners who spoke out were not buying into the plan.

The CB7 Transportation subcommittee meeting ran approximately three hours and focused only on the West Side of the proposed bike lane. The East Side section of the bike lane, which will go from Fifth Ave. to York Ave., will be covered in a CB8 meeting in the fall.

For approximately the first half of the April 14 three-hour session, Patrick Kennedy, a project manager with the NYC Department of Transportation’s cycling and micro-mobility unit, laid out the details, doing his best to assure Upper West Siders—some in the room and others attending on Zoom—that the new bike lane would be a plus for everyone.

“Protected bike lanes are not only good at improving cyclists’ safety,” said Kennedy, “they also benefit pedestrian safety, organize the roadway, they shorten crossing distances and often include signal treatments that benefit pedestrians as much as cyclists.”

Citing a DOT report published in 2022, he pointed out that streets with protected bike lanes saw a 39 percent decrease in severe injuries and fatalities and a 22 percent drop in overall injuries among senior citizens.

“So redesigning a roadway to include a protected bike lane...benefits all adults. Seniors especially.”

Try telling that to Hildy Schachter. On August 21, 2014, her husband Irving was running in Central Park, training for a marathon, when he was fatally struck by a 17-year-old cyclist. “In his memory, we need safer ways of getting around as cyclists and pedestrians,” she told the room.

In this Instagram post about her husband’s accident, posted by the organization @streetsblognyc two months ago, Hildy says “One way to respond is to say the cyclist was a negligent fool. And indeed, that is true. But as I thought about things, I realized that the likelihood of this crash happening was not only there because New York has its fair share (and then some) of negligent fools, but it was also ... because the park was actually poorly designed.”

The proposed bike lane would reduce the four lanes of traffic on W. 72^nd St. to two. And it would run the length of the north side of 72^nd St., from Riverside Drive all the way to the park entrance on Central Park West. The design features no physical separation between eastbound and westbound bike lanes, a fact many in the room (and on Zoom) found troubling.

When Kennedy shared his screen to show cross-sections of what the new bike lanes would look like, emojis started flying over Zoom. There were hearts❤️, celebratory “tadas,” curiously, “Faces with tears of joy,” and a couple of applause emojis. But the most commonly shared emoji was “Astonished”: faces that look like they’re saying “WHAT?” Those were flying fast and furious.

After Kennedy’s presentation, committee members were each given a strictly enforced 1 minute to weigh in. Following that, community members who were lined up in the crowded room got their minute, followed by Zoom attendees. Several commenters spoke out in favor of the project; but more than half, it seemed, for reasons of safety and business operations, were steadfastly against. Tip Top Shoes, on 72^nd St. between Amsterdam and Columbus, is on the same side of the street as the proposed bike lane. Owner Lester Wasserman said his business gets FedEx and UPS deliveries lasting 40 to 60 minutes apiece, twice in the morning and twice in the evening. “One lane turns into no lanes very, very fast. If, God forbid, I were to suffer a medical emergency or one of these seniors (did), how would an ambulance possibly get through to save a life?”

Cliff Korn, managing director of sales at Acker Wines, on the south side of the same block, told the room Acker handles 500 to 1,000 cases of wine in and out of its doors every week, and has five full-time delivery drivers handling the load.

“If we can’t make deliveries, they’ll lose their job. This is so negative toward business. We’ve been pillars in the community. This is not even palatable for us. And we’ve been here since before most of you guys. This is going to force us to move.”

One older resident of 72^nd St. talked about how difficult it will be for seniors to cross the two-way bike lane, in addition to two lanes of traffic. “Do you think that seniors are nimble enough? To be able to look this way, to look that way, to navigate when bikes are coming both ways. This is a tremendous concern. I don’t think seniors are made safer by this. I think they are in peril.”

Responding to those remarks, Colleen Chattergoon, a senior borough planner with DOT, said the agency would be “more than happy to go to a lot of the senior centers and give...safety education presentations.” That did not go over well with some of the seniors in the audience.

Celeste Miller, who lives in West 73^rd St., said she was “really offended” by what she described as Chattergoon’s “very marginalizing and condescending to seniors.”

Chattergoon responded by doubling down on the offer to coordinate with the offices of Councilmember Gale Brewer and Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal to work closely with seniors to assuage their concerns.

Two Community Board 7 members on the transportation committee voted against the proposal while seven voted in favor. The full board votes on May 1. The community board votes are advisory in nature and the DOT said it would proceed regardless of the outcome

The fireworks are bound to continue.