Showing posts with label Bayonne Bridge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bayonne Bridge. Show all posts

18 May 2023

Where Am I? In My Favorite Season

What is your favorite time of year for cycling?

For me, the answer has varied throughout my life.  I guess it had a lot to do with my over-arching mood at that time in my life.  For example, I have loved Fall riding at different times for the colorful foliage, the sunset light that simmers into a chill, or just the melancholy (definition:  aesthetically sad) feeling. 

Right now, I might say the month of May because--ironically--because of its colors, which include many shades of purple.  But one thing I truly love is that there is more daylight with each day:  a trend that will continue until late in June, when Summer begins.

Those extra minutes and hours of daylight mean that even if I am busy during the morning and afternoon, I can take a ride late in the day.  I have lights, but I prefer to ride in daylight whenever I can.

Which I did yesterday.  After pedaling to the World Trade Center, I took the PATH train to Jersey City and rode down to Bayonne, where I crossed the bridge into Staten Island--and the Ferry.

I took these photos with my iPhone.  Depending on which way I turned, each was recorded as a different locality.  This one is recorded as "Bayonne"



and these are "Brooklyn"








Even this



which is every tourist's vision of the Manhattan skyline, is marked "Brooklyn."  I took all of those photos within a couple of minutes, from the ferry deck, and did nothing more than turn at a slightly different angle with each shot.

Ironically, I would ride through Brooklyn on my way home.

19 March 2022

St. Patrick's Day Sandwich

I had a St. Patrick's Day sandwich.

No, I'm not talking about corned beef and cabbage.  Rather, two fabulous cycling days sandwiched St. Pat's holiday, which featured rain, drizzle and more rain.  Wednesday was sunny and clear, if a bit nippy, but yesterday was more like a day in the middle of May:  sunny, with a slight breeze and temperatures that reached 22C (72F).




So, yesterday, I took advantage of the weather--and the extra hour of daylight at the end of the afternoon, thanks to Daylight Savings Time--and pedaled up to Greenwich, Connecticut and back.  



Of course, being so early in the Spring (or not officially Spring, if you look at the calendar), some plant life isn't quite ready to express the weather.  I didn't mind, though:  the tree in that photo is still beautiful, I believe, in a New England sort of way.  





I must say, though, it's odd to see bare trees as folks strolled along the common in T-shirts, tank tops, shorts or light, flowy skirts.  Then again, I was wearing my lightweight knee-length "knickers" and a long-sleeved T-shirt--and fingerless gloves.

On Wednesday afternoon, after riding to the World Trade Center and taking the PATH train to Journal Square, Jersey City, I pedaled along Kennedy Boulevard down to Bayonne, where a park entrance enticed me to take a detour. 








That park, the Richard A. Rutkowski Park, which includes the Hackensack Riverwalk, abuts Newark Bay, which forms part of the boundary between New Jersey and Staten Island.  Now, this park isn't Big Sur or Acadia, but it has its own charm.  For one thing, it's nicely landscaped and the paths are well-constructed.  For another, it has something of the aesthetic of a post-industrial park like the Cement Plant Park in the Bronx but the waterfront in Rutkowski is still active:  Ships come and go, and the docks and factories still hum with activity.  Somehow all of that makes the sensation of riding by the water all the more calming, especially late in the day, at least for me.






From there, I pedaled down to the Bayonne Bridge for the first time in a few years.  It had been closed so that the span could be reconfigured to allow larger ships to pass.  I am happy to report that the reconstruction includes a bike and pedestrian lane that's better than the old one.  For one thing, it's wider and better-maintained.  For another, it is on the east side of the span, which offers better views than the old one on the west side. Best of all, it lets you off at Trantor Place, where directions to the Ferry (to Manhattan), Stadium and Snug Harbor Cultural Center are clearly marked.  

My only criticism of the new lane is that it's a bit difficult to access from the Bayonne (New Jersey) side.  The entrance ramp rises from Kennedy Boulevard between 7th and 6th Streets.  It's set back and not clearly marked, and because Kennedy is interrupted by a highway entrance and takes a turn on the other side of it, it's easy to lose your way. (If you continue to go straight, you'll end up on a different street altogether.

From the bridge, I rode Richmond Terrace, which winds along the North Shore of the Island and passes Snug Harbor.  The main problem with the Terrace, for cycling, is that it's narrow and almost everyone drives well over the speed limit.  There's been talk of constructing a cycle lane alongside it, or on parallel roads, to allow a safe cycle route from the Bridge to the Ferry.  

So my St. Patrick's Day "sandwich" included enough riding, I think, to burn off the calories I consumed on the day itself--all of them from Irish (or Irish-American) delicacies!

27 April 2015

Cyclists Can't Get Off (Or On) The Island

Every decade or so, some resident of Staten Island tries to resurrect the movement to “free” his homeland from the colonial clutches of New York City.  Much of that impetus is really no different from the change in politics people undergo when they morph from single city dwellers to suburbanites with lawns, SUVs and broods of kids:  No matter how much evidence (statistical and otherwise) they are shown to the contrary, they become convinced that the taxes they’re paying for their plots of land and shelters are subsidizing freeloaders in the city they’ve left behind.

Ironically, there is a strong argument for those Staten Islanders who want to liberate themselves from the Big Apple, even though they never use it:  geography.  You see, although the Island is one of the five boroughs of New York City,  it’s actually closer to New Jersey than it is to Gotham—or, for that matter, any other point in New York State. 

Early governors of both states noticed as much and nearly fought an intercine war over it.  The reason each side wanted it is that the Island, which sits at the point at which the Atlantic Ocean meets New York Bay (at the Verrazano Narrows) and the Hudson River, is the Gateway to New York Harbor.  That distinction was even more important then, long before trucks hauled goods on Interstates and airliners ferried passengers across the ocean. 

So how did the island become a county (Richmond) of New York rather than New Jersey?  It was the “prize” in a boat race.  Or so legend has it. Really, you can’t make this stuff up.  Ever since, some New Yorkers have wondered whether the Empire State actually lost and Staten Island was the booby prize.  That, of course, begs the question of what New Jersey won.  The Nets?

Joking aside, this capsule history is actually relevant to this blog and, in particular, to the subject of this post.  You see, the secessionists’ worst nightmare has come true, in a way—at least if any of the secessionists are cyclists.
  

From Bikensurf

Right now, it is impossible to pedal to or from the Island.  And the only way to get to or from "the forgotten borough" with your bicycle—aside from hauling it in or on a motor vehicle—is to take the Staten Island Ferry to or from Manhattan.  According to a Port Authority official with whom I spoke yesterday, this situation will continue for “about two years”.  That, of course, begs the question of whether those years will consist of “New York minutes” or Biblical days.

Of the bridges that connected Staten Island to the rest of the world, only the Bayonne had a walkway cyclists were allowed to use.  It was closed in September of 2013 for an extensive rebuild which will result in raising the roadway higher above the water so that newer, larger ships can pass.  From May to October of last year, the Port Authority operated a bicycle shuttle across the bridge.  But that shuttle will not be available this year, as the bridge is closed to all traffic, motorized and otherwise. 

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might recall that I've crossed the Bayonne fairly often.  I could do a nice half-day ride by pedaling across the RFK Bridge, up through Harlem and Washington Heights to the George Washington Bridge, along and down the Jersey Palisades, then to the waterfront of Jersey City and Bayonne before crossing to Staten Island and taking Port Richmond Boulevard, which snakes from Superfund sites to the hill of Snug Harbor and some of the most stunning views of the lower Manhattan skyline.  Then I’d hop on the Ferry and, after disembarking, I could pedal or take the subway home.

Now, I would have to end that ride in Jersey City or Hoboken and turn back—or take the PATH train or one of the boats to the World Financial Center.  I’ve done both, and they’re not disagreeable.  But, to me, neither quite compares with taking the Ferry from Staten Island. 

Besides the Bayonne, three other bridges go to and from Staten Island.  One is the Goethals, which had a very narrow path just barely wide enough for most people to walk across.  When my parents were living in New Jersey, I used to take that path because, while not the most pleasant ride, it was convenient:  Once I disembarked from it, I could ride across Elizabeth to State Route 27, where traffic wasn’t terrible.  However, I tried to use it about three years ago, only to find a gate across it.  When I asked a Port Authority officer whether it would open again, he claimed that it never was legal to ride or walk across.  When I explained that I used to take that path “all the time”—and I wasn’t the only one who did—he said it simply wasn’t possible, for there never was any path.  "Well, I guess I broke the law," I said half-jokingly.  "Maybe you did," he replied, suppressing a grin.

Anyway, the PA official with whom I spoke yesterday told me the Goethals is getting similar treatment to the Bayonne and will have—as the Bayonne also will—a “twelve-foot wide bike and pedestrian lane”.   Yes, in “about two years”.

As for the other two connections—the Outerbridge Crossing and the Verrazano-NarrowsBridge—neither ever had bike/pedestrian lanes. The Outerbridge (which is actually named for its builder and is not, as many believe, so named because it’s the “outer” of all of the crossings) takes motorists from the west shore of the Island to Perth Amboy, New Jersey. 

The Verrazano, on the other hand, brings cars, buses and other vehicles to and from Brooklyn.  In his infinite wisdom, RobertMoses didn’t want to deface his last great project with provisions for people who want to walk or pedal.  (It's claimed that he didn’t want buses to cross the span.)  In his vision of the world, everyone would have his or her own car and get in and use it to get in and out of the city—where he or she would work and perhaps shop, but not live.  Even how people played would be determined by the internal combustion engine:  He built Jones Beach, accessible Long Island’s highways but not by the Rail Road or any bus line. 

(Given what I’ve just described, it’s surprising that he actually built the Kissena Velodrome—and that he himself never learned how to drive!)

For me and other cyclists who don’t live on Staten Island, the situation I’ve described is an inconvenience or annoyance.  But those who live there can’t get off the Island—or escape from New York.  I just hope, for their sake, that they aren’t secessionists.  Somehow I don’t think very many of them are.

12 July 2014

The Bridge, When We Come To It: A Shuttle



A couple of years before I started this blog, the walkway of the Veterans’ Memorial Bridge, which connects Rockaway Beach with the Queens “mainland”, closed for repairs.  The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls the bridge and most others (as well as tunnels, the PATH trains and the Port itself) in this area, provided a shuttle van across the bridge during the “cycling season”, which PATH deemed to run from May to October. 

Of course, it wasn’t as convenient as riding across the bridge walkway.  And, of course, it stranded those of us who ride year-round.  But at least the service was reliable and the drivers courteous and helpful.  


 

I can say the same things about the driver I encountered today on the shuttle across the Bayonne Bridge.  He is a Port Authority contractor, as were the drivers who ferried us across the Veterans Memorial Bridge.  I don’t know whether he’s a cyclist or not, but he said there needs to be more bike access on bridges and other byways.  “Cycling and walking have to be encouraged,” he said.  “There’s just too much traffic.”

As courteous and helpful as he was to me, I didn’t get the sense he was parroting some party line or simply what he thought I wanted to hear.  If anything, I had the sense he’s the sort of person who doesn’t do—or, perhaps, is incapable—of such things.  So, when he unloaded my bike on the Staten Island side of the bridge, I thanked him profusely.  “I’m just doing my job,” he demurred.

But that, of course, wasn’t the only reason I was expressing gratitude.  As I get older, I am more grateful for my opportunities to ride as well as for the great and small ways in which people are helpful or simply hospitable—and, of course, for a gorgeous day like today.

11 June 2014

Across The Bridges

On this blog, I have posted many images--and many more words--about cycling across bridges, mainly in New York City.




Even before I became a dedicated cyclist, I was fascinated by bridges.  Perhaps it has to do with seeing, in my childhood, the construction of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.  I was living in Brooklyn, not far from one end of the span.  I had no idea of what lay on the opposite shore, at the end of the long cables that were descending like steel cocoons woven from arches that rose like slender, elegant apparitions from the metallic ripples of the bay.  I didn't even know that the place was called Staten Island.

It just amazed me, to no end, that something could be built over a body of water to allow people to move from one place--sometimes, one world--to another.  Bridges like the Verrazano (When are they going to add a bike lane to it?) and the Brooklyn, with their long approaches to their towering arches, dramatically convey the sense of such a journey:








Then there are those bridges--like the Bayonne and Marine Parkway Bridges--on which you feel everything opening around you and there seems to be nothing but water around you.  Those bridges are usually not suspension bridges and thus do not have webs of supporting cables surrounding you:  Such spans are flat or have a single arch in spanning the length, rather than several stretching across the width, of the bridge.  If you're agoraphobic, you don't want to ride across them.







On the other hand, some bridges enclose you.  In parts of the Williamsburg Bridge, these "walls" of girders are rather elegant:





But, at other times, you can feel as if you're cycling in a cage.





Perhaps the strangest sensation I ever experienced in crossing a bridge (apart from the time lightning flashed around me on the Brooklyn Bridge) came from underneath me, when I crossed the Pont Jacques Cartier in Montreal.  The bike/pedestrian path was not paved.  Rather, it was an open metal grid deck.  You've probably driven over it:  Sometimes it's used on bridge road surfaces because puddles can't form on it as they can on asphalt or other surfaces. 








While it made for a surface that wouldn't be slippery on a wet day, it also exposed the St. Lawrence River, churning more than 100 meters (about 30 stories) below.  Also, at the time, the arced fence that now encloses the pedestrian/bicycle lane had not been constructed. 

I can hardly recall any other time when I rode with so little separating me and my bike from a large body of water with a strong current.  It was quite the crossing, quite the journey.

19 June 2012

This Bridge Is Out

You don't cross it for the scenery:  There are a power plant, trailer park and a container port on one side, and petroleum refineries and a rather rundown section of a gritty city on the other side.  


I used to cross it, though, every month or so.  When my parents were still living in New Jersey, I used to ride over the bridge's pedestrian lane--a ribbon of concrete just wide enough for a bicycle with dropped handlebars, seperated by a rusting iron wall about as high as the top of the average  cyclist's pedal stroke--to an intersection of a couple of highways, where I had to dodge trucks and ten-year-old Buicks driven by people who hated their jobs and put-upon housewives.


Such was the charm of crossing the Goethals Bridge.  Even if you've never been anywhere near it, you've probably seen it:  It's the bridge in the opening credits of The Sopranos. The bridge connects the only two places in the universe where the Sopranos could have lived:  Staten Island and New Jersey.  To be precise, the hulking span--which, even on a clear day, simmers in angry haze of smoke from rusting but still-functioning factories and refineries--links the most stereotypically unappealing parts of New York City's "forgotten borough" and a city that, until recently, basked in the glow of its neighbor:  Residents, in defending their hometown, would say, "Well, at least we're not Newark!"


But the bridge--named for the engineer who supervised the construction of the Panama Canal--was a link to greener pastures, to use a cliche.  Riding south from Elizabeth on Route 27, the industrial landscape would turn into a more-or-less suburban vista that included a rather nice park along the Rahway (as in the state prison) River.


I hadn't intended to ride that far into New Jersey. But I have been contemplating a ride to some of my old stomping grounds along the shore.  So, I decided to take a ride to the bridge, and to go across it.  However, a wrench was thrown into my plans.








Or, more precisely, a fence was erected between me and them.   Behind it, you can see the entrance to the path--when it was there.  Apparently, it's been removed or blocked off.  For all I know, it may have collapsed:  The Goethals is one of those bridges that always seemed in need of repair.  I'd bet that the soot those refineries and factories belch has something to do with it.






Anyway, when I turned around, I saw a Port Authority cop making his rounds.  In response to my question, he said there's no path for pedestrians or bicycles.  "Never has been," he added.


"Really?  I used to cross over it."


"But there never has been a path."


"There used to be something, on the side. It wasn't much, but I used to cross it.  So did other people."


"Well, there never was a path," he said.


Half-joking, I said, "Oh well, I guess I broke the law twenty years ago."


"Maybe you did," he said, suppressing a grin.


He then advised me of how I could go to New Jersey:  across the Bayonne Bridge, over which I have ridden a number of times.  He even gave me directions on how to get there.  The only problem is that Bayonne, while it has its charms (It was, after all, the home of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons!) , is really in the middle of nowhere.  More precisely, it's on a peninsula, and the only way off is through the bridge and a couple of highways.  At least, those are the only ways I know to go to points south in New Jersey.


So, I followed the Port Authority cop's directions past the container port, more decaying industrial buildings and marshland (in Tony Soprano country!) to Richmond Terrace, which snakes under the Bayonne Bridge and the north shore of Staten Island to the eponymous ferry:  the only way on or off the island.


On my way back to Manhattan, I thought about the ride in, when I met and exchanged e-mail addresses with a young(er) man.  More about him, possibly, later.