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I attended the Siren Music Festival at Coney Island this past weekend. One of my co-workers is a fan of the Raveonettes, who were scheduled to perform, and a few of us decided to go as a group. While they took the Q train through the bulk of Brooklyn, I opted to take advantage of the sunshine and ride my bike down Ocean Parkway from Park Slope.
When I arrived and caught up with them, one of my friends remarked, “Did you know that there is a bridge connecting Brooklyn with Staten Island?”
“Yeah, at least you'll have an easy ride back home,” another commented.
Not quite. I explained that the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which connects Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to South Beach, Staten Island, is car-only. It was an easy ride and the view was amazing, but it was a rare opportunity instead of a daily amenity.
It ought to be the other way around.
The Staten Island Ferry is free largely because it costs money to get back to the island every other way: the express bus from Brooklyn, the tolls on the Bayonne, Goethals, and Outerbridge from New Jersey, and the toll on the Verrazano. The Bayonne is the only one that allows bicycles, and even then cyclists must walk their bikes across the bridge due to safety concerns. Even the SI Ferry comes with its own rigamarole towards cyclists.
In Vancouver, city officials have recently converted the outbound lane of the Burrard Bridge into a cycling and pedestrian path. The Burrard Bridge has three lanes going both ways, and “even with a third of the vehicle capacity removed, the backups don't extend further than they usually do.”
The Verrazano Bridge has twelve total lanes: three per direction on two different levels. Surely they wouldn't miss just one.
A bicycle and pedestrian path on the Verrazano Bridge would provide much-needed access back and forth from Brooklyn to Staten Island for non-drivers. It is a simpler and quicker way to Coney Island, Rockaway Beach, and Prospect Park. It would cut down on automotive traffic, since residents would have the opportunity to bicycle or walk across the bridge rather than drive, and therefore ease congestion and gridlock. By cutting down on traffic, of course, we also cut down on harmful automotive emissions and gasoline consumption. It would provide a zero-cost way to get on and off the island, a privilege that is certainly afforded to every other borough, and having a free option on a tolled bridge would do more to encourage residents of both boroughs to take up cycling as a means of getting across.
Given that Staten Island politicians are loath to provide any services to cyclists, in the name of safety, transportation, or otherwise, would-be Verrazano bikers must appeal to the MTA, who ultimately control the bridge via the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority. If Staten is only to be given a few miles of bike lanes, I would rather have them on the Verrazano than in New Dorp.
As for me, faced with the likelihood of riding in the dark all the way back up through Brooklyn, over the Manhattan Bridge, then to the ferry terminal, I opted for the N train instead.
Related info: Study Says Closing Roads Might Cut Congestion. Huh?
Comments
Excellent suggestion, Meredith! It's pretty stupid to not have a bike lane to SI.
I wonder how much the toll would be on cyclists? The odds of a car lane being converted to a bike lane is just about zero but that does not mean there could not be a setup that allowed bikes on the bridge, better have some good legs to get over the gangplank.
The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge will never need 12 auto lanes, because the highways leading up to it will never be expanded to that many. So taking away a couple of lanes for walkers, bikers, and buses can be done without affecting car traffic. Of course, Staten Islanders won't believe that...
As a former Bensonhurst resident who took full advantage of the bicycle path along the Belt Pkwy as a kid, it always amazed me that there was no dedicated road for pedestrians. I think it's time the tolls on the Verazzano are used to construct some sort of pathway over the top 6 lanes connecting the 2 boroughs. After all, the tolls were originally meant to finance the construction of the bridge only before they were to be removed. That said, give the people back something in return after 45 years of paying through the nose!
When the bridge was built it actually had plans for a bike/ped path but there were apparently a rash of suicides from bridges so planner Robert Moses had the Verrazano striped of the perimeter walkways, making it car only. If you've done Bike NY you'll know that the one day a year bikes are allowed on the bridge, it's a long steep ride. And unfortunately, w/o other traffic mediation on the sides and keeping it a one way toll, cars are too easily lured to driving it and using all those lanes. I think a better bet would be to advocate for an MTA bus or shuttle to be on hand with bike rack abilities taking people across. Or perhaps get some funding to add the bike/ped perimeter back on!
=v= No tolls for cyclists. The money we already pay for roads and facilities already greatly exceeds the impact we have on them. The exact opposite is true of motorists, so the bottom line is that we are already paying far more than our fair share to subsidize them.
Bunch of dopes! Have you ever been on the bridge when a disabled is taking out 1 lane!? How's about an accident? 2 traffic lanes in either direction.... Yeah Ok!
Kind Reader Harry- I am advocating removing ONE lane of traffic overall for a two-way bicycle/ped path. So there'd still be a total of five lanes one way, six the other. (Though I'm also in favor of adding the "perimeter" as an alternative AND adding some bike racks to interborough buses--see my article on bike racks on buses--but these additions would likely be more expensive and thus more apt to get shot down because of the cost.)
And: so what, if there is a jam then it takes you a little longer to get home? As opposed to cyclists and peds who are not even allowed upon the bridge at all, despite contributing with tax/toll money to its upkeep? As you succinctly put it, "Yeah OK."
(Read up on "Braess' Paradox." It's the name of the phenomenon when one lane is moving, you merge into it, and the lane you just exited starts moving while you are at a standstill.)
Thank you all for your thoughts and suggestions.
It would be great bike ride to Staten Island. I'm doubt that bureaucrats will approve or spend money on it.
P.S $11 for a toll is a rip off.
Growing up in Grasmere near the VZ Bridge and having lived in Park Slope for a decade of my adult life and lamenting that I couldn't just easily ride from the Slope to Bay Ridge and over the bridge to visit my folks instead of going via Manhattan and the ferry, and now back on SI for 2 years, I've always been frustrated that the only time I can ride across the VZ is during the 5-Boro bike tour. There are many proposals, and the issue has come up now and then over the years. The place to put a lane is between the ropes, so it seems. But in the absence of implementing the VZ bike lanes (which seems politically infeasible-especially in this bad economy-can you imagine the howls of outrage from the Advance editorial pages?) it would be very simple to outfit the Bay Ridge-bound S53 and S79 buses with bike racks. The other option is to buy a folding bike (you can buy a cheap decent used Dahon off of Craigslist, and take that on the Brooklyn-buses). I've been mulling that for 5 years now.
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