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Central Park Conservancy's $900,000 Plan to Straighten Path Opposed

By Amy Zimmer | July 21, 2011 10:08am

UPPER EAST SIDE — The Central Park Conservancy’s plans to straighten the path at an entrance on East 69thStreet is being resisted by members of Community Board 8.

Opponents are worried that a straighter path might encourage bike riding — which is illegal on the park’s pedestrian walkways.

Officials from the Central Park Conservancy said that realigning the path and moving benches further from the entrance would help ease congestion and improve the view from Fifth Avenue to the East Green. 

To help ease the sharpness of the curve, the conservancy would introduce a slight bend in another 48-foot portion of the path that is currently straight.

The $900,000 project, which also includes improving storm drainage to prevent erosion, would take up to six months, officials told community board members at a meeting earlier this month.

Lane Addonizio, the conservancy's associate vice president for planning, noted that the East 69th Street entrance was built well after Frederick Law Olmsted’s original plan and therefore was out of character with other park entrances.

But some members of the community board said they liked the path’s “unusual geometry” that blocked park goers’ view of the street.

At a community board meeting on Wednesday night, members approved making changes to the benches — which would be moved and replaced with Worlds Fair-style wood-and-cast iron benches instead of concrete. They approved making changes to the drainage.

But they voted against altering the path.

“A less angular design of the path potentially could spur biking on this pedestrian path,” the board’s resolution read.

The community board’s vote is only advisory.

The Central Park Conservancy also wants to pilot a program that would open two crosstown paths in the northern part of the park, one at E. 97th Street and one at E. 102nd Street, to bikes. That plan has caused concern among some board members, who worried about pedestrian safety on the shared paths.

Bicycle advocates have been calling for the path sharing plan to give them a safe way to cross the park since currently they’re forced to ride on the transverse roads with speeding cars — or ride illegally through the park on its paths.

The conservancy’s Caroline Greenleaf had told board members that the shared paths' success will depend on "people who have civility." The paths' speed limit will be clearly marked for 5 mph, "which for us is one of the most important elements."

If the pilot program proves successful, pedestrian paths would be open to cyclists elsewhere in Central Park, Greenleaf recently told members of the Upper Wes Side’s Community Board 7.