Papa Tom

Rode to a baseball game in Plainview today and couldn't resist checking out the unfenced, paved portion of the new bikeway that dumps out onto Woodbury Road. Unfortunately, the pavement ended a short distance up Sunnyside Blvd and I ended up having to ride the LIE service road up and over Misery Mountain to get to my destination. The good news is that I am finally starting to get my legs for the season.

Anyway, what I noticed is that the right-of-way for the path looks pretty hilly for your average Mom/Pop/Kiddie ride. Not that the hills are huge, but they really should be graded so the climbs are more gradual, not like the sudden, sharp inclinations within Bethpage Park. Has anybody else taken a look at this?

(Heads-Up: I have been a critic of this incarnation of the bikeway extension from the beginning. However, I am open to other opinions.)

Lightingguy

Tom,

I assume you are talking about the LIE service road section between Woodbury and Sunnyside, as well as the fact that it's a steep little uphill on Sunnyside from the service road to where Sunnyside turns west ?. No real options on all this unless the DoT wants to do a cut and grade through the woods just north of the LIE.

If memory serves, the huge expense of dealing with the hills north of the LIE was the primary reason the path did not go to the CSH LIRR station.

As well, it remains to be seen if lawsuits result from some inexperienced rider getting hurt on a downgrade, as had happened on the bike path just north of the BP Parkway traffic circle about 20 years ago and that resulted in the state having to re-build the section from the park entrance at Powell Ave, to the traffic circle to ease the gradients.

What I find so humorous, is I just got back from a wedding in San Francisco, where I have done some cycling. SF has an extensive network of paved paths as well as on-street bike lanes, many of which go up and down some very steep hills, similar in grade to Avery Rd. or Lawrence Hill Rd in Woodbury and Cold Spring. Nobody in SF seems to mind the fact that in order to get from Fishermans Wharf to the Golden Gate bridge, you have a long steep climb on a single geared rental bike. SF is hilly and if you want to ride a bike, you're going to be dealing with hills !.

SB

Papa Tom

>>>Nobody in SF seems to mind the fact that in order to get from Fishermans Wharf to the Golden Gate bridge, you have a long steep climb on a single geared rental bike.<<<<<

Yeah, but there's a big difference between the allure of riding from Fisherman's Wharf to the Golden Gate Bridge vs. riding from Bethpage Park to Geico headquarters. I'm a big fan of Mystic, Stonington, and Narragansett, and every year or two, I throw my sluggish bones on a bike and chug up some huge Connecticut/Rhode Island hills to get there. But if I had to sweat through my work clothes climbing hills to get to the Syosset LIRR station just to call myself "green," I don't think I would last more than a few commutes.

The whole thing is a mess, in my opinion, but let's hear what others have to say.