A lively Putnam Trail debate

Following an Aug. 28 story about an award-winning documentary on the Putnam Trail, people for and against paving the path engaged in a lively debate online. Excerpts are below. You can join the discussion at www.riverdalepress.com.

Not every park-goer “butts heads” with the Parks Department over the Department’s plans to widen the Van Cortlandt Park portion of the Putnam rail-trail. In fact, it seems to be only a small, well-heeled group of elite runners who want this section of what is supposed to be a multi-use path to conform to their parochial views.

Far from the “pristine beauty” the article suggests, the trail is a muddy collection of rocks, tangled brush and rotting, creosote-covered railroad ties. It is often impassable after it rains. It’s a runner’s and biker’s nightmare, and completely unusable for anyone using a mobility assistance device such as a wheelchair or motorized scooter.

The trail today is toxic. Chemicals from the decades of rail traffic are still in the ground, and chemicals are still leeching into the soil from the rotting ties. The improvements proposed by the Parks Department would remove these dangers, and convert this beloved section of a 50 mile long multi-use path into a joy and benefit for everyone.

The Parks Department proposes to apply a flexible and *non-toxic* material suitable for multi-purpose use by walkers, in-line skaters, and mobility assistance devices as well as bikers. It will not be “paved over,” a term which elicits images from the Joni Mitchell song, and grossly inappropriate to this discussion. To especially accommodate runners and joggers, each side of the multi-use portion would be lined with a lane of crushed gravel, which is advantageous to runners and jogger only.

The Save The Putnam Trail (SPT) group would instead have only an eight-inch-wide lane of crushed gravel and nothing else. While a boon for elite runners and joggers, such a surface is dangerous for bikers and skaters, and very difficult on which to navigate mobility assistance devices. Eight feet does not allow for much passing room for anyone or anything other than runners and joggers. Fifteen inches allows more varied and higher density usage, in keeping with the City’s GreenSpaces initiative.

I appreciate the awards the film has won and they are well deserved. But good cinematography does not make good public policy. The advocates of a runners-only surface represent only a small group. The Parks Department has the greater public’s interest in mind. We’ll still have paradise, easily accessible and usable by anyone, no matter the way in which they enjoy it.

— Steven424

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You misreport a number of facts. The original proposal was for a three-foot earthen jogging path, not three feet on both sides of “crushed gravel.” Secondly, the trail is already four to five feet in some places, and despite that fact, all users negotiate the trail very well and harmoniously. If someone wants to go 20 to 30 mph on a bike, then that becomes a problem. 

But one reason to keep the trail a natural path (stone-dust or compacted-earth with natural binders) is to slow traffic down so other users can use the trail and enjoy a park with a certain history and character that’s different than everywhere else in the city. 

Also, what you’ve neglected to mention is that the equivalent of 400 trees and countless plants will be destroyed to widen this trail to 15 feet, or the fact that the area is one of the last freshwater wetlands in the city, or that it runs through protected Forever-Wild Preserves. A path through those areas, which allows fast biking, destroys everyone else’s experience. An eight-foot-wide crushed-rock OR compacted earth path is environmentally friendly and spares the ecology. It helps keep the city cool, and allows everyone to enjoy nature. It helps filter toxins from the air and water from rain. It’s win-win for everyone.

— sjcbronx

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I completely agree with you that cycling at 20 to 30 mph on the Putnam trail would not only be problematic, but downright reckless. Fortunately, there are very few riders in NYC who can sustain those kinds of Tour-de-France speeds. The usual speed on trails like Putnam is 10 to 12 mph, which is what I average along the rest of the Putnam trail up to Brewster.

Also, do you have any idea how many trees there are in Van Cortlandt Park? According an article at www.vcpark.org, there are over 80,000. I seriously doubt this many would have to be “destroyed”. Did you include in your 400 count the trees and bushes that would be “destroyed” to accommodate those sections of the trail that would be widened to eight inches?

The improved Putnam Trail surface represents 0.238% of the park’s area. Do you really believe that a covered area just two tenths of one percent of Van Cortlandt’s size would make much of a difference to the air quality of NYC? What about the eight-foot-wide area covered with the gravel SPT wants? Trees and bushes won’t grow there either, so it will not contribute to any shade or air purification. But there will be gravel dust.

— Steven424

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The SCT slopes downward to Van Cortlandt Park about 12 inches per mile, so obtaining fast bike speeds would not be difficult. In hilly Central Park, bike speeds have been recorded as averaging 15 to 18 mph, with some going as fast as 25 to 32 mph depending on time of day. 

Speed is not only an issue. Asphalt will invite ATV and vehicle use in a wetlands/Forever Wild area, the kind of places that are shrinking, not increasing in the city. There is also the issue of added heat and PAH toxins from asphalt that goes into the environment and into the water table.

Parks itself reported 400 saplings will be planted, which means that based on the wood-for-wood formula, they’re removing the equivalent of 400 trees. At the DEC hearing last year, they admitted they were removing 300 trees of six inches or less diameter. Another eight to 20 trees with diameters larger than six inches was mentioned by DEC in their Aug. 28, 2013 ENB. It’s a far cry from the Parks Departments’ report of only five to seven trees being removed. 

The Putnam Trail is different than other parks, because of where it is located, again one of the last remaining freshwater wetlands in the city, and in Forever Wild-designated preserves.

The issue is far more complicated than may appear. The community should want this done right, because it is important on many levels.

Also if you need more information, Steve, you are welcome to visit www.savetheputnamtrail.com which is run by Bronx residents and park-users of different ages and interests.

— sjcbronx