South Nyack Continues Fight Against Bridge Bike Path Plans

South Nyack officials want a big turnout for the Board of Trustee meeting Feb. 24—which will be at the Living Christ Church.

The members of the Tappan Zee Bridge Task Force will attend.

The first two hours of the meeting will be an open session devoted to hearing residents‘ concerns about the location of the terminus and other issues about the shared pedestrian/bicycle path across the New NY Bridge, Mayor Bonnie Christian said on the village website.

The state has posted eight concepts for the path’s Rockland side terminus on the New NY Bridge website: http://www.newnybridge.com/documents/sup.

The New York Thruway Authority has begun an environmental review of the proposed path and the Federal Highway Administration is Lead Agency.

“Both the TZB Task Force and I have spoken with members of the Federal Highway Administration,” she said. “They now have a good understanding of the negative impacts of the SUP terminus being located at Cornelison and South Broadway.”

Village officials are adamant that the location for the terminus should be at Exit 10 of the Thruway. Their position is clearly laid out in a formal response to the NNYB’s call for comments on its concepts. Here are some of the main points:

• It is inappropriate and premature to begin the environmental review process because: the Thruway authority has not given sufficient public notice; the stated Purpose & Need and Project Objectives are vague and inadequate; most of the concepts are variations of one idea; there’s been no coordinated review with the Village of South Nyack; the study of parking demand though the concepts call for on-street parking in a residential area is inadequate; the alternatives to promote public safety are inadequate; and there’s been no SEQRA coordination.
• While New York law authorizes the Thruway Authority to provide transportation facilities, it has no clear authority to provide recreational facilities without the approval of the locality in which they are to be situated.
• Now that the SUP has been acknowledged as a “destination”, the social impacts to the character of the Village of South Nyack and economic impacts to the Village of South Nyack must be addressed.

MAP: SUP concept B-1/New York Thruway Authority