By Aliza Appelbaum

The fight to create a strip of parkland stretching from upper Manhattan and through the Bronx to Yonkers has begun a new chapter.

It’s been more than a decade since the last serious effort to create a Hudson River Valley Greenway, which would give Riverdalians access to the entire length of their waterfront property, now mainly occupied by trains and tracks. Supporters of the project are working with the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council — which is a conglomeration of city, state and environmental agencies — to discuss possible routes for the Greenway, all of which would cut through Riverdale.

NYMTC is “committed” to planning a design for a riverfront route, though the exact route has not been selected yet, and there is currently no clear preference, said Howie Mann, of NYMTC’s project’s manager.

NYMTC’s part in the Greenway project aims to create a plan for a route that would then become the basis of negotiations with city, state and rail agencies. To bring the Greenway effort back into public consciousness and build support for the project, the Riverdale Nature Preservancy and Friends of the Hudson River Greenway in the Bronx co-sponsored a meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 18 at Wave Hill, where the possible routes were unveiled.

“This project has faced a lot of challenges,” Mr Mann said. He noted issues with funding, boundaries and the environment in his presentation at the meeting. “This is the point in the project where we begin to document and design solutions to these challenges.”

One such issue is that a riverside route would likely conflict with the railroad tracks that currently occupy that prime riverfront land along part of the route. NYMTC hopes to work with the railroad companies and the MTA to make room for the path alongside the tracks, and in some places where the tracks are no longer being used, replace them completely, Mr. Mann said. While those conversations have begun, he said, NYMTC can’t force agreement.