Lack Of Central Park Bike Paths Are 'Ticking Time Bomb,' CB Says

CENTRAL PARK, NYC — A group of community leaders are demanding the city create safer ways for cyclists to get across Central Park that they say could have possibly prevented a fatal accident on the Upper East Side late last year.

Members of the parks and transportation committees from the Upper West Side's Community Board 7 passed a joint resolution Tuesday calling on city officials to immediately fix some of the park's existing bike routes and start a task force to look into creating more.

The meeting was scheduled after Daniel Cammerman, a 50-year-old pediatrician affiliated with Mount Sinai on the Upper East Side, was hit and killed by a school bus near East 96th Street and Fifth Avenue in December.

Board members and residents said Tuesday that had there been better options for Cammerman, who used one of the transverse roadways instead of a bike path to get across the park, he might still be alive today.

"This is not something we can wait and plan and think about — this is a ticking time bomb," transportation member Richard Robbins said. "[A fatality] is something that can easily happen again."

Residents told the board members that the problem is both a lack of biking options and safety issues on paths that already exist.

To get between the park's east and west side, the only direct paths available now are a shared path at 72nd Street or a 96th Street pedestrian and cyclist path, though that route includes a section where cyclists are required to get off their bikes and walk to exit on the east side.

Avid cyclists that went to the meeting Tuesday said a big part of the problem is a lack of signs, which make it difficult for cyclists to know where these two paths are and confuse people on the path who think it isn't open to cyclists. The 96th Street path also frequently has paving problems, they said.

Some cyclists said they even take the bus or a car instead of biking because the paths are difficult to use and or are too far apart to use to get to destinations between them.

"I have to exit the park at 96th, go past a ghost bike memorial for the doctor who died on the way to work, and then bike 20 blocks on Fifth Avenue, which is not safe either," one resident who bikes to her office on East 79th Street explained. "We need more and better options."

Caroline Greenleaf, a representative of the Central Park Conservancy, said that part of the problem is that Central Park was not designed to be a "cross commuting" corridor.

"It is a scenic wonderful place that is a sanctuary for everyone goes into it, but it was never designed for what people are demanding is a current use," Greenleaf said, adding that she is open to adding more crosstown paths.

Ultimately, the committee decided to pass a resolution asking for "short term action" from the city as the agencies that oversee the bike paths look into longer term solutions. The Department of Transportation, Central Park Conservancy, Parks Department and NYPD Central Park Precinct all play a role in controlling and monitoring the park's pathways.

The resolution calls for clear signage about where "wheeled vehicles" can go to cross the park and stricter enforcement of cars that speed through its transverse roadways, including "your speed signs."

It also asks that DOT, the Parks Department, the conservancy and NYPD create a task force to brainstorm other solutions.

The resolution will head to the full Community Board 7 for approval. It asks that the task force come back to the board with ideas as soon as possible but no later than March.