New York City Bike lanes: A Kid’s Perspective

My husband and I moved to the Upper West Side in 2005.  One of the sights we loved was the development along the Hudson, with the bike lane as one of its primary attractions.  We thought it would be nice to own bikes and cruise along the Hudson River.  And what about that: our building has a free-to-use bicycle storage room.  However, we did not take any action to bring this to reality for some time. 

In summer 2006, I spent a full month in Berlin, as part of student exchange program in the City College’s school of Architecture. Design-wise, it was one of the worse semesters I had.  But when I returned home, there was a surprise: my husband bought us both bikes!  We used them almost every weekend, mostly along the Hudson, both south and north, enjoying the city’s waterfront!

The years past, and our family expanded.  So, we decided to get a baby-bike-seat and installed it on my husband’s bike.

As the picture shows, the little one really enjoyed his seat of honor and joined us on several rides and picnics along the river.

Obviously, the next step was for our son to claim independence, and from around age 4 he started to ride his own bike.  For this specific task of writing in our blog, I recruited him as an advisor, asking him to take a ride along that same path on the Hudson River, from our apartment building on 63^rd Street and West End Avenue, south to the Riverside South Park entrance on 59^th Street, go up north along with Riverside Park bike lane through Pier 1 (parallel to 70^th Street), and return home from there via Riverside Boulevard.  I asked my son about his experience taking this ride, with a combination of open- and guided-questions.  To note, he is 5 years and 3 months old at the time of taking this ‘test-ride’.

So, here we go:

My son’s first part of the ride was to get out of the building on a Sunday morning, with drizzle conditions, and ride on the sidewalk towards 59^th street.  Obviously, he could not ride the street with the cars humming along West End Avenue.  The first part of his trip was joyful, going down the small hill from 63^rd street towards 62^nd. 

While he enjoyed going down a hill, he told me that he wish he wouldn’t have to stop for the lights on West End Avenue and 62^nd, 61^st, and 60^th streets.  

Before we continued to 59^th street, my son wanted to explore the new street recently opened on 61^st street.  So we made a right turn, to encompass our building complex.  Interestingly enough, along that route, my son encountered a bump that kept his wheels from turning…..he was trying to continue while his back wheel was turning in the air, just like a cartoon…

We then returned to West End Avenue, and went south to the corner of 59^th Street, heading west-bound on 59^th street.  This was a very bumpy sidewalk, which is not commonly used by pedestrians.  The ride was slower for him, since he had to be careful for the numerous bumps due to the poor condition of the pavement along this street. 

Once we got to Riverside South park entrance, he had to wait for us (the adults) and carefully merge in the bike traffic going north-south (two ways).  He told me: “mommy, this is like a bicycle highway”.  My assumption is the traffic was somewhat slow that morning due to the almost-rainy weather (although warm for an early December morning).  From my experience, traffic on this bike lane is definitely much heavier on the spring/summer days.

From there my son went up along the bike path, all the way to 70^th street, with my husband and me accompanying him by foot.  Some of his feedback to this ride up-to 70^th street was that he did not like having to steer to the right, as we kept reminding him, so that faster riders can pass him on his left while staying on this two-way path.  He was afraid to get too close to the right-side fence that is in many parts of the section he was riding in.

I can add that as an adult walking by a young bike rider, it did not feel safe.  Most of the path is not a shared path, and the choice to make is either take the joggers/rollerblades path with a kids bike, or take the bike path and walk by him.   We took the second option, but it required active monitoring for his safety.

Otherwise, my son thought that the path was smooth, with no significant bumps (especially for his training-wheels assisted bike).  The flat path was easy for him to manage with no uphill paddling, but did not offer him any rides down a hill/ramp, which he pointed out.

The view along the river was nice, although the iffy weather was not as helpful.  We could not enjoy the same sights of the river, boats and the George Washington Bridge as we had in previous rides.

The service locations along the path were also not great during this off-season.  In the spring/summer/fall, one can stop for a meal at the Pier 1 Café (a kids favorite for anyone on the Upper West Side), or use the restrooms outside the café area.  Both of these were closed during this mid-December ride.

Also, if we wanted to park his bike (or ours as well), and lock them, there were no apparent bike-parking locations.  The only options were tying the bike to the river-front fence or any of the numerous benches along the esplanade. 

We could not have done this ride in the late afternoon hours, since there are no lights along the bike path, which could have been really enjoyable for a breezy evening ride in the summer. 

From 70^th street, we had two choices of return: walk the bike up the ramp to Riverside Boulevard (riding the bike along the ramp – up or down – is not allowed), or continue to 72^nd street, and ride up a VERY steep hill to reach the northwest corner of Riverside Boulevard and 72^nd Street.  We chose to take the first option: our 5-year-old wanted his parents’ help in walking his bike up the ramp.

Once on riverside (by 68^th street, since the ramp is 2-block-long), my son wanted to ride his bike again.  This time, he was going on the west side of Riverside Boulevard, which is a nice, long walkway without any lights or parking garages.  This allowed him to speed away, and we could see him getting ahead of us by several blocks.  Ironically, both the child and his parents felt safer for him taking this part of the ride, although it was a sidewalk, and not a designated bike path.  He stopped at 63^rd street to wait for us to cross the street towards our building, eastbound.

The overall ride took us about 45-60 minutes, but some of it was due to the ‘questioning’ I had to do as part of interviewing my son for his riding experience. My son enjoyed his ride and felt safe, within the parameters and guidelines set for him.