Bid to add Verrazzano biking path

Give people another way off Staten Island!

Transportation advocates are escalating their push for the installation of a bike and pedestrian path on the Verrazzano Bridge, the city’s largest span without one.

Transportation Alternatives and the Harbor Ring Committee, a group calling for a 50-mile recreational route around New York Harbor, have been raising the idea for years. On Monday five representatives from those groups blitzed the public testimony session at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Bridge and Tunnel committee meeting, demanding agency officials take it seriously.

“Staten Islanders have few ways to exit our island, particularly few to access the rest of New York City,” said Transportation Alternatives member Laura Barlament. “The island is choked with traffic as it is underserved by both public transportation and cycling infrastructure.”

Staten Island is hardly accessible for those without cars, a feature of the borough that is due to improve slightly when bike and pedestrian paths open on the Bayonne and Goethals bridges later this year.

The MTA shot down a proposal two months ago to temporarily replace one of the bridge’s 13 car lanes with a bike and pedestrian space over the summer. Officials said it wasn’t safe to install a bike path next to cars that are moving 45 mph.

A 1997 study by the firm that designed the Verrazzano, Ammann and Whitney, found that a simple bike path could be added to the bridge for $25 million. The MTA rejected that proposal due to security concerns, and commissioned another study released in 2015 indicating a multiuse pathway would cost as much as $400 million.

Paul Gertner, chairman of the Harbor Ring Committee, said MTA officials justified that high estimate because of an FDNY requirement that the path must be capable of holding a full-sized fire truck. Agency brass also said a bike path would require 15 years of ramp reconstruction on Belt Parkway.

Harbor Ring Committee said it hired bridge engineer Joseph Pullaro in 2016 to take another look at the 1997 plan and that he said it was still viable and could be completed for roughly $65 million.