By Jaclyn Anglis
Charles McKinney, the Principal Urban Designer for NYC Parks, told a community board committee this week that the parks department and Riverside Parks Conservancy are working on a new Riverside Park master plan. The plan so far consists of an 8-page report on potential projects that the city hopes will improve the overall quality of the park.
The plan focuses on addressing issues such as bicycle, pedestrian and runner circulation, landscape health and beautification, park operation and safety, and many other concerns. McKinney was particularly interested in making sure the park serves the changing demographics of the Upper West Side, addressing the needs of the growing populations of senior citizens and children. The next step is for the planning team to prepare conceptual plans and budgets over the summer that will work toward restoring the park.
Check out the group’s goals below.
I hope they address the rat problem in the River Run playground. I was there at dusk and the rats climbing in the full trash cans was scary. Those cans should be emptied more often.
There are rats in many of the UWS playgrounds.The problem is widespread.
“You got rats on the west side
Bed bugs uptown
What a mess this town’s in tatters I’ve been shattered…”
The Rolling Stones put it very succinctly! And that was in the 80’s! The more things change, the more they stay the same.
70’s!
The thing i’m most afraid of reading this is that they will ban bicycles almost everywhere, like in Central Park. Please don’t do that, it would be a tragedy.
Please allow Riverside to keep its casual charm in which both walkers and bicycle riders can enjoy the park in relaxation. Please look for a way to discourage and police the minority of dangerous, rude, inconsiderate bicycle riders, without placing all bicycle riders in the same camp. Most bicyclists simply want to enjoy the park respectfully and would welcome education about how they might keep from alarming, scaring, being perceived as dangerous especially to children and the elderly. I hope we can rely more on education and cultivating civility than paint and dividing those beautiful wide park bench boulevards into fast and slow lanes.
Yes i have a vivid imagination, but take a look at the transverse lane at 72nd street in Central Park now that they finally “legalized” bicycle traffic in both directions and ask yourself if it didn’t work better for everyone before it was divided up into confusing painted lanes that only half the people there bother to follow. People now go faster and are more dangerous than before, and are wasting their attention trying to decipher where they are supposed to ride rather than simply taking care. My big worry is that they’ll put down designated paths for bikes in the riverside boulevard, which will mean we have to spend most of our mental energy trying to stay inside lines rather than simply being careful and considerate of pedestrians. Those paths will then become like bicycle right-of-way highways through the park and although pedestrians will never stay out of them, bicyclists will feel entitled to speed through them and yell at walkers who don’t get it.
Just thinking ahead, but the future comes quickly once the powers that be start talking about Master Plans
Stop. This makes too much sense.
I’m not sure what the big concern is in the park. in my experience, walking around, most of the cyclists in the park have been fine. Especially in the park, on the paths, most cyclists are pretty courteous of walkers.
Along the river on the path, people can move pretty quick, which may get a bit disconcerting. I think the biggest area of need is around the boat basin. The path narrows, there are a lot of benches, kids, drunk frat boys post kickball game, and it does get a bit crowded.
But what good solution is there? If we start dividing up the path, painting lines, it just gets confusing and angers everyone more. I think more signage, more barriers to slow the faster riders, and maybe a few more cobbled sections to force people to keep to a reasonable limit are possibilities, but only in that small section in the lower 80s and upper 70s, along the river.
For the rest of the park, I think things are pretty good.
I live on 95th Street just off of Riverside Drive and use the park daily all year round to practice the Taiji Chuan I teach. The five blocks immediately south in the park are among the most beautiful in the city in the spring with Crabapple Grove’s incredible collection of flowering trees. But there is no real promenade until you get to Soldier’s and Sailor’s Monument around 90th. The 95th Street entrance is the only level entrance (no stairs or steep declines) until you get to 79th Street so the elderly and strollers all roll in there. It is narrow. Just six or seven steps across and even though most bike riders really slow down it is difficult to navigate during the day. The 24th Precinct has done a great job cracking down on the cars exiting the Westside Highway there but the entrance on the south side into the park is still a mess.
I’ve found a very patient ear with Community Board Seven and Councilwoman Rosenthal on these concerns and would also like to thank Neighborhood in the 90’s Aaron Biller for his continued commitment on these safety issues. I don’t have the answers and am pretty confident in the awareness I practice walking into the park but as a former pre-school teacher and son of 99 year old mother I am continuously concerned for the safety of our more vulnerable citizens and visitors.
The promenade along the Hudson River is a scary place given the number of bicyclists pedaling at full speed and weaving between pedestrians. Even sitting on a bench has a degree of danger given the bikes riding close enough to roll over legs. It is madness to have bikes and pedestrians on a narrow walkway.
There’s so much increased housing but not enough greenspace. So more people moving into glass towers but the city planners don’t think about how to expand the greenspace to keep up with the rising population. That’s why it’s seems so dangerous With bikers joggers and don’t forget the parents running with strollers. I get run over by parents Too.this is due to poor planning.