Community Board Wants Speed Limit For Riverside Park Cyclists

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — The Upper West Side's community board voted to urge city officials to implement a speed limit in Riverside Park for areas where bicyclists share paths with pedestrians.

Community Board 7's resolution suggests a 10-mile-per-hour speed limit for all shared paths in the west side park from West 72nd to 97th streets. The board passed the resolution with a vote of 35 in favor, two opposed and one abstaining.

While the resolution enjoyed overwhelming support, many board members wondered how the speed limit would be enforced. Member Klari Neuwelt said that she sees people zip by at speeds close to 35 miles-per-hour on electric bicycles but "I have never been able to elicit the slightest evidence of any enforcement."

Transportation committee co-chair Howard Yaruss said the board's resolution should explicitly call for enforcement of the speed limit and added that there's currently no enforcement on speed in the park because there is no speed limit.

The ultimate solution to preventing conflict between bicyclists and pedestrians in Riverside Park would be to design the park so that each has dedicated space, but a "perfect" solution should not get in the way of the good idea of speed limits, Yaruss argued.

Community Board 7 passed two resolutions related to bike safety in Riverside Park during its full board meeting on Tuesday. The second was a resolution rejecting a $200 million city plan to renovate the Riverside Park rotunda on West 79th Street that serves as a traffic circle, on-and-off ramp to the Henry Hudson Parkway and a connection from the street to the Hudson River Greenway.

Read more about that resolution here.