The Greenway Movement

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In the 1970s, the growing popularity of bicycling led cyclists, park planners and landscape architects to start improving old trails and creating new ones. A national network of bicycle routes has been growing ever since. In New York, advocacy groups including the Neigh-borhood Open Space Coalition, the Consumer Farmer Foundation, Public Space for Public Life, and Transportation Alternatives, along with the City Planning, Transportation and Parks Departments and Borough Presidents' offices, have mapped out a series of greenways that traverse every area landscape, from skyscraper canyon to terminal moraine. It is this network that City and State planners are now actively transforming into official policy and — in some cases — bicycling infrastructure.

This local network will eventually hook up with planned regional and national routes. Greenway planners are working on an East Coast Greenway connecting Washington, DC to New York City and Boston, and another route linking New York City to Montreal. Greenways could be created along the Merritt Parkway corridor all the way to Hartford, and along the Erie Canal leading to Buffalo. The New York State legislature has voted to develop a greenway route tracing paths on both sides of the Hudson River, from Battery Park to Troy, NY, near Albany.