From The Inbox: “It’s About Time” For Verrazano Pedestrian Path – Rally On Saturday

A reader sent us the following letter to the editor, making a case for a pedestrian and bike path spanning the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and urging neighbors to attend a rally for the cause this Saturday:

A dedication was held on November 21, 1964 to open the Verrazano Bridge to the public. That day, a group of people spoke out that the bridge should have a walkway. One carried a sign, “Are Feet Obsolete?”

Robert Moses, then the head of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, didn’t want a pedestrian / bicycle path. Now, at the 50th year anniversary, it’s a good time to fix this mistake.

Some feel that a Verrazano foot / bike path would be too long because the length would be 2.59 miles. However, there are paths longer than this that are being built. San Francisco’s Bay Bridge foot path is two thirds completed. When done, the path will be 4.46 miles long. The Tappan Zee Bridge is being replaced. The new bridge will include a foot path that will be three miles long.

The cost of this foot / bike path? When a Department of City Planning study was done in 1997 the price to put a path between the cables of the bridge was estimated to be 26.5 million. That would be 39.2 million in today’s dollars. Is that too much for a path that will be there for generations when the net profit from the Verrazano tolls is estimated to be 250 million per year? Let the MTA use more of our Verrazano toll money on enhancements to the bridge instead of subsidizing their other projects.

It is time to put a path on the Verrazano Bridge. We have waited long enough. Come out to the rally for the path on October 18, 2014. That’s from 11:00am to noon at the Alice Austen House, 2 Hylan Boulevard, at Edgewater Street in Staten Island.

— Roy Fischman