Originally Posted by
dmac49
walk their bikes across if you read the posted signs on the Mid-Hudson Bridge. If I want to walk I usually leave the bike home.
I've ridden my bicycle across the Mid-Hudson Bridge lots of times over the years -- usually on the north sidewalk, but at least three times in the roadway very early in the morning when the sidewalk had not yet been opened. But you're probably correct about there still being a sign saying that bicycles should be walked.
Perhaps for a lot of people it's safer to walk than ride on that sidewalk. Or maybe it's not safety but concern for conflicts between bicyclists and pedestrians on the narrow sidewalk. But there's so few pedestrians on the bridge that I've never found it a problem to just stop riding when I reached one.
Anyway it is possible to ride without hindrance of signs across the river between Dutchess and Ulster counties on the Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge - (I think when Sharon and I rode across that one back in April the signs said it was
walkers that were not allowed.)
The reason for a lack of people riding between Poughkeepsie and Highland across the river is not just a couple of signs about walking bikes. (There are much cheaper ways to solve that problem, if lots of people think it's a problem.) I suspect currently few people ride across because they can't think of what on the other side would make them
want to.
I think the point of the railroad bridge thing is that the experience of riding on the bridge itself is the reason to make them want to try it. So it's mainly not a matter of providing a "bicycling connection" between the two counties or towns -- but rather a more dramatic exercise experience. And if the connections on both sides get made, a longer rail trail than you'd have if you were confined to only one side or the other.
btw I've already gone the whole way on the Dutchess side rail trail from Hopewell Junction to Poughkeepsie. One day in winter when it was covered with snow, I skied it.
Ken