Tag Archive | "Bronx Greenway"

City Seeks Bronx Residents’ Views on Greenways

Cyclists get ready to survey the Bronx. (Sonia Paul/ The Bronx Ink)

Groups of cyclists aren’t a common sight in the South Bronx, especially on a blistering, late-summer day.

But on Aug. 26, community advocates from the Bronx River Alliance, Transportation Alternatives, Bronx Health Reach and other local organizations gathered on the corner of Whitlock Avenue and Westchester Avenue with helmets on their heads and their bicycles by their sides.

Their mission was to document the conditions on the roads linking Hunts Point Riverside Park, Concrete Plant Park and the soon-to-be-opened Starlight Park. For years, these groups have been asking the city’s Departments of Transportation and City Planning to improve the greenways within the parks. Now, city officials finally seem to be paying attention — and in an ongoing series of meetings, they’ve been asking the community firsthand what they want for the greenways.

Concrete Plant Park has been open to the public since 2009, and Hunts Point Riverside Park since 2007, but the community groups say both parks need upgrading.


View Current Conditions on the Bronx River Greenways in a larger map

“A part of the issue is that the on-street connections haven’t been properly connected,” said Devona Sharpe, greenway coordinator for the Bronx River Alliance. “And the condition of the street itself, it’s not inviting to users.”

The most direct path connecting the three different parks follows a north-south route along the Bronx River, with a U-turn around the busy Bruckner Expressway. From Hunts Point Riverside Park to Starlight Park, pedestrians and cyclists have to navigate through difficult terrain simply to get from one street to the next, as well as from one park to the next. Tree roots pushing through cracked sidewalks, shards of glass on the road and nonexistent bike lanes are just some of the physical barriers on the roads.

Though greenways exist inside the parks, they don’t fit into the grander scheme of urban planning in the area, said Linda R. Cox, executive director and Bronx River administrator of the Bronx River Alliance, at a community meeting on Sept. 6, after the cyclists documented the conditions on the roads.

“The greenway isn’t just about the parks,” she said at the meeting. “It really is about what we do on the streets.”

Staffers from the city’s Department of Transportation were also present to show their plans for the greenway and take comments and suggestions. According to Scott Gastell, spokesperson for the Department of Transportation, city planners have been working on a greenway proposal for the past three years. Their priority is to make the greenway more accessible to pedestrians and cyclists, but they must consider the large number of vehicles that cross the area every day.

Figuring out how to negotiate access for pedestrians and cyclists is a growing issue in the Bronx, where vehicles dominate the roads. In 2010, 169,550 vehicles traveled daily in both directions on the Sheridan Expressway, according to traffic volume reports from the state Department of Transportation. The number of vehicles passing through Westchester Avenue the same year was 108,770. To get to Starlight Park, which is scheduled to open this fall, residents and visitors must navigate both roads.

At the Sept. 6 meeting, representatives from the Department of Transportation said they are planning to visit local community boards in the next couple of months to gather more opinions on their greenway proposal before they submit it for official city approval.

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Cleaning up after Irene

Lia Lynn Vega, 15, hauling sacks of litter from the Soundview shoreline.

“I’ve found another needle!” shouted 13-year-old Isaias Vega from a jetty along the Bronx Greenway.

His 15-year-old sister noted the needle on her data sheet and it was added to the pile collecting on the bank.

Around them, a handful of volunteers worked to free all manner of plastics from the shoreline as part of a coastal clean up led by environment agency the Bronx River Alliance.

Who cleans the Bronx Greenway, a new stretch of coastline pathways in Soundview? No one, according to the state department for parks. That job falls to volunteers who, after tropical storm Irene, are finding the task a little too much to handle.

The Greenway was opened in 2008 and has been in a state of disorder since Hurricane Irene, which kicked up storm surges between seven and 15 feet, submerging large chunks of the coastline. The surges dumped plastic packaging from Hunts Point Terminal Market in the backyards of Soundview residents and the paths surrounding Soundview Park.

According to the state Parks department, the Greenway is the responsibility of local park rangers who in reality have little time to dedicate to clean-ups. Without volunteers like the Vegas family, the contaminated coastline would be left to fester.

The local community often has other priorities, too. “Last year Friends of Soundview Park organized clean ups every Sunday, but this year that time has been given over to cultural activities,” said Carlos Martinez of the government’s Partnership for Parks.

When volunteers do come, they are shocked by what they see. On Saturday Sept. 24, the Bronx River Alliance gathered help from various charities including faith-based youth group YMPJ, education charity Build On and Friends Of Soundview Park.

“Normally we see litter, but this year there were a lot of things washed up,” said Alliance ecology director Robin Kriesberg. Volunteers worked for three hours to disentangle needles, six pack rings, tampons and styrofoam from the banks of the river.

Ocean Conservancy, the not-for-profit behind the annual event, provided volunteers with standardized data cards to record every single item of debris in categories ranging from bottle tops to shotgun shells. The cards are sent in and logged for an annual report on global marine debris.

“We’re also teaching kids about packaging and littering,” said Martinez. “So next time they have junk food they think twice about throwing the packaging on the floor.”

Nilka Martell, has been volunteering with Partnership for Parks since she lost her job as a paralegal secretary last December. She thinks the clean up is good for her children Isaias and Lia Lynn. “It keeps them off the streets, the TV and the internet,” Martell said.

Many volunteers were dismayed at the state of the coastline. “We have to do clean ups all the time, one weekend is not enough,” said Ashley Quiles, volunteer co-ordinator from the Bronx Alliance, as she gathered everyone for a debrief at noon. Along the jetties, a thick covering of colored plastics remained mashed into the mud.

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