Robert Moses, New York’s master builder, has left his legacy all over the city. And while we won’t be so immature as to call him “stupid,” we will go ahead and say he lacked a certain amount of foresight. How else to explain the man’s absurd insistence on building structures and neighborhoods with only cars in mind? Especially when it extended to the point where he didn’t even give the Verrazano Bridge, the only land-based route to Staten Island, pedestrian access? Now some New Yorkers are asking the state to finally fix that oversight, and you can too.
Just in time for the Verrazano’s 50th birthday next year, New Yorkers have put together a Change.org petition that asks for the state to build pedestrian walkway that the bridge was originally designed with but was never built. The petitioners claim this isn’t an impossible task and cite an engineering report from the 90s that’s on their side. A pedestrian walkway would also complete a 50-mile cycling and pedestrian route around the Hudson River known as the Harbor Ring, that goes through Brooklyn, Staten Island and New Jersey. Which would make say, riding your bike to Philadelphia easier, if you wanted to do something insane like that.
And from a practical standpoint, the petitioners point out that if a disaster that slows down car access occurs, a pedestrian walkway would make sure Staten Island is less cut off from the world. Not that anyone has ever heard of anything like that around here, .
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It says on the petition HARBOR Ring…not Hudson. I signed! I would love to bike or walk across the bridge.
Doh? Staten Island is connected to the mainland/continental USA at three points: Bayonne Br, Goethels Br and the Outerbridge Crossing. The VNB connects only to another island.
If Robert Moses lacked foresight it was in not anticipating the overwhelming volume of truck & auto traffic generated for his road network as a result of his dis-investment in mass transit, rail and marine transportation throughout the metropolitan region. The PANY&NJ did not help there either. Walk/Bike just didn’t count as a commuting option to him.