By Howard Husock
If you’ve yet to experience it, do take a walk, run, or bike ride along the Playland Parkway Trailway, newly paved and complete with charming bridges linking North Street with Playland. The long-delayed $3 million trail was supposed to do more: it was intended to connect cyclists from the Rye train station to Playland. As things stand now, it’s something you do at great peril.
Those looking to cycle from the station to the amusement park first have to search the Metro-North parking lot for the sign for the new trail at Station Plaza. Once they do, they find the way blocked by adjacent restaurant outdoor dining tables.
Matters only get worse.
Cycling along Theodore Fremd Avenue, “share the road” signs notwithstanding, can only be described as treacherous. One friend quipped that the condition of Theodore Fremd is what you might expect in downtown Mogadishu.” The County-owned thoroughfare is a mass of potholes and asphalt cracks that can knock the unwary cyclist over and into the path of traffic.
Signage pointing the way to the new trailway is few and far between. Newcomers to our fair city would likely be perplexed. Nor is there a pedestrian light to help one cross busy Theodore Fremd, at the I-95 entrance, when the fortunate finally reach the trail. No painted bike lane either.
The City of Rye is doing a good job replacing streets all around town this summer, but Westchester County has been lax in replacing the roads for which it’s responsible. It’s well worth noting that Rye taxpayers send more revenue to the County than they do the City (23 percent compared to 17 percent in 2020).
It took more than a decade for the new trailway to be completed. Let’s hope it won’t take nearly that long to repave the streets that allow one to reach and enjoy it. Drivers might appreciate this, too.
There does appear to be hope. County Legislator Catherine Parker told the paper that a contract to repave Theodore Fremd has gone out and work is expected to begin this fall.
