They call this a greenway?

Okay, just a bone of contention. But, wait, first the backstory... (don't you wish all cinematic endeavors worked this way?) I sprained my foot a few months ago and as my encouraging and seemingly completely off his rocker doctor told me, "Oh, you'll be fine in 10 days." Well, 10 days passed. And then 10 more. And then 5 times that. And my foot is still not up to extreme...whatever it is that feet do to the extreme. Footing the bill. Whatever. Anyway, my doc sucks rocks. I'm going to get a new one. But, that's not really the back story, exactly. The back story is that I haven't been playing ultimate recently and I desperately didn't want to turn into some kind of large sloth like creature. So, I took up my favorite non-impact sport: biking. And I took it up with quite a bit of glee, actually, discovering that NYC is really friggin' big. I mean, enormous. I lived in San Francisco for a long time and biked through the streets there, but NYC makes it seem like some kind of isolated backwater. Which, in many ways, it is. So, with a great amount of enthusiasm, I began tracing down all of the various and sundry greenways in the city. I can now safely report on 3 of them after a trip today. In order of disappointment:

1. The East River greenway: heck, I don't even know exactly what the damn thing is called, but it shouldn't have the word "greenway" anywhere in its title. It could be called the "loose affiliation of open spaces not entirely dominated by automobiles, mostly, except for the part where it diverges onto the 4 lane mad taxi filled avenue." It's not a greenway! Where you can bike, uninterrupted by cars, there are no paths. It's just a promenade of sorts. And then, the promenade is filled with people walking dogs, meandering, or worse yet, sunbathing. What is the east side nyer's fascination with accelerating the aging process? And they sunbathe everywhere! I saw three people who had dragged out their chaise lawn plastic lounge chairs into the middle of a promenade (yes, on the faux greenway) to sit, nearly underneath an overpass leading to the Manhattan Bridge. And there are numerous benches here, too. I'm sure this sounds a bit like a screed -- actually, I found it exceptionally humorous and very telling about the general NY mindset: basically, we'll make it work. Whatever we want to do, we'll figure out a way to live our life the way we want to, environmental circumstances be damned. I actually quite respect and admire that tenacity. But enough about the average NY mindset. This greenway blows chunks. I'm taking Broadway the next time. At least I know I'll almost get killed by a taxi there, instead of having my inner ear jarred loose by cobblestone pavement (that looks great for a promenade, mind you. But isn't a greenway! Have I made my point yet?

2. The Ocean Avenue Greenway: What the hell? Yeah, okay, it's a "greenway" in the truest sense of the word. No cars can drive on it. But it's positioned in the most precarious of places -- in between a very active near-freeway that is Ocean Ave (or should be called Ocean Expressway or something) and the one way side streets that are also Ocean Ave. All running parallel. Okay, fine, no big deal. Except, cars going 35-50 are making panic right turns across the breaks in the greenway to go on Avenue X, Y, or Z, often not looking to see if the greenway bicyclist is actually crossing on their green light as well. To top that off, the greenway cyclist view of potential death is highly obscured by...well, by greenway greenery. And the pavement looks like some worm from the movie "Tremors" had lunch there. My advice: stick on the side streets -- better pavement, better sightlines, less chance of getting hit by a car. And, hey, either way you twist it, it's a great way to get out to coney island .

3. The West Side Greenway: I have to say, I'm impressed with this in comparison to everything else I've seen so far (but I'm not done, yet...). It marries a decent pavement with a streamlined route that is both safe and effective. I can get up to 104th in almost 30 minutes from the WTC, even on a pretty windy day. It does occasionally have to stray into promenade territory, but the promenades are paved evenly (instead of cobblestoned...who thought of that, anyway?) and are wide enough to accommodate two lanes of traffic (most of the time). It does jog off into an underpass at 125th and the famous Cotton Club, but it gives the side benefit of biking past the fabulous Fairway Market, which always smells like fresh baked bagels or pizza. Though, directly thereafter you'll be regaled with the odors of the NYC sewage system, as you take a slight detour through what appears to be off-limit governmental waste sites or something. Ah, the "only in NY" contrasts are lovely at times. I've yet to take it further than 181st, but my only real complaint is that it's often very difficult to get out of the greenway and into a city street that far north.

Phew. Anyway, I still like biking. And I like biking in NY, too. Maybe some day, I'll like biking into upstate NY, but we'll just have to see how my foot handles that. Coming soon: a detail of the bridges of NYC (way more exciting and sexy than "The Bridges of Madison County"...)