Residents Urge Parks Department to Reopen “Nightmare” Washington Heights Bridge During Repairs

A dilapidated footbridge in Fort Washington Park posed problems for uptown cyclists for decades. But when the Parks Department suddenly shuttered the bridge, it also severed their artery to the rest of Manhattan.

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by Maggie Green

The bridge over the railroad tracks in Fort Washington Park in Washington Heights serves as the main route to the rest of Manhattan for cyclists from Washington Heights, Inwood and the Bronx.

For decades, residents complained about the bridge’s splintering wood and uneven surfaces. Yet when the city parks department suddenly blocked off the bridge for inspections and repairs last month, essentially severing the Hudson River Greenway, cyclists and pedestrians still weren’t happy. Residents said they’d lost access to the safest path downtown.

In two hours last Sunday afternoon, two cyclists—Liz Marcello, 35, and Sierra Pasquale, 34—collected nearly 60 signatures on a petition asking the parks department to reopen the bridge and provide information on short and long-term repairs.

The two women, who met while griping about the bridge on Twitter, plan to mail their petition to the mayor, community leaders, the parks department, the Department of Transportation, Amtrak and anyone they feel can move the project along.

“It’s an intergovernmental clusterfuck,” Marcello said.

Liz Marcello and Sierra Pasquale urged cyclist Enrique Chavez-Arvizo to sign their petition.

For now, orange safety cones, barricades and yellow caution tape close off the bridge, built in the mid-1800s, according to Untapped Cities; a newly-erected chain link fence obstructs both sides of the bridge.

Along the Henry Hudson Parkway near West 181st Street, several metal gates prevent cyclists from reaching the closed bridge from the north and urge them to use local streets to enter the Greenway more than 20 blocks downtown.

Crystal Howard, a parks department spokesperson, said the bridge will undergo temporary repairs before reopening to the public, with more extensive construction slated to begin in late 2019. The department expects the project to cost $5.7 million.

The city has apparently delayed such repairs for years. An online capital projects tracker from the parks department said it would begin design work, the first step in reconstruction, in September, 2009, and complete it by November 2015.

Within a week of its closure, however, the parks department had removed that information from its website. The department did not reply to questions about the reason.

In an email, Howard said officials plan to replace part of the bridge’s support structure and its surface. The finished overpass will have a steel and concrete surface instead of wood.

Once construction begins, the project will probably take about two years, said Elizabeth Lorris Ritter, parks and cultural affairs chair for Community Board 12.

The years-long delay in rebuilding the bridge apparently stems from the fact that the parks department doesn’t have its own discretionary budget and must rely on city council members to allocate funds, according to the department’s website.

The city requires all capital projects to have full funding before they begin, so officials halted the bridge repair until they could identify sources for all the money needed, Lorris Ritter said.

The project’s original funding was cut, then later restored between late 2011 and early 2012, Howard said. The parks department also had to negotiate an agreement with Amtrak, because the bridge spans active railroad tracks. “Unfortunately, the process took longer than we expected or desired,” Howard said.

Few local cyclists who use the bridge frequently disputed the urgent need for repairs.

Uptown photographer and cyclist Steven R. Hazlett, 32, said he noticed surface flaws on the bridge 20 years ago.

“I remember being 12 years old, biking over that bridge.” Hazlett said, describing cracks in the wood and a bumpy surface. “As time went on, things got worse.” By now, “it kind of resembles a third world country,” he said. “It’s a nightmare for cyclists.”

“It needed repair a long time ago,” agreed Judi Desire, a web developer who leads the cycling advocacy group Uptown and Boogie. “Every time I turned around, it was always another patch to patch the patch to patch the patch.”

Marcello said the bridge became especially treacherous when wet. “I know a girl who races who got a concussion on the bridge,” she said.

“People don’t tend to think about these unsexy infrastructure projects until they break,” Lorris Ritter said. “The problem with that is when you get the funding, it may have taken so long that it may have become more expensive.”

Cyclist Armenoush Aslanian-Persico, 32, who lives in the Bronx but often rides the Greenway on her way to work, said the city should have acted years ago. “They’ve known about this for a long time,” she said.

Orange safety cones, barricades and yellow caution tape close off the bridge.

Lorris Ritter said the bridge will likely reopen temporarily in late September or October after initial repairs. In the meantime, a notice attached to the barricades at all bridge entrances advises residents to use the West 158th Street Greenway entrance, reachable via city streets.

“It leaves you nowhere,” Desire said. “You’re putting people out from this safe path to the busy street.”

Uptowners quickly found alternate means to reach the Greenway, however. Savvy residents who know the geography of Fort Washington Park devised a pathway that allows cyclists and pedestrians to enter the Greenway closer to 175th Street.

This route detours under the George Washington Bridge, loops down a wood chip-covered trail and under a small bridge, climbs over the Henry Hudson Parkway and emerges near the Little Red Lighthouse on the south side of the shuttered footbridge.

“It tells you about New York: if there’s a will, there’s a way,” Desire said.

The parks department laid the wood chips to protect park users from a slippery dirt hill, Lorris Ritter said, calling that “an amazing example of a city agency being extremely responsive to citizen needs.”

But the chips actually make the ride more difficult for cyclists, Aslanian-Persico said. Pasquale added the alternate routes are especially difficult for elderly uptown residents who walk through the park.

Murali Chigurupati, 50, a Washington Heights resident, hopes a complete overhaul of the bridge proves unnecessary, but said the city needs to tell residents its plans, especially if the project snowballs.

“If it’s a costly project that closes the bridge for a long time, I would hope there would be some options,” Chigurupati said.

Meanwhile, cyclists hope their severed tie to lower Manhattan will soon be stitched back together. “I hope that those in charge of the process are aware that this is an important link,” Aslanian-Persico said.

For a construction update, please see “Parks Department Starting Temporary Repairs to Washington Heights Bridge.”

(Featured photo courtesy Armenoush Aslanian-Persico. Other photos by Maggie Green)

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