The Helix bike Ramp’s been kicking around since at least 2019. Who first cooked it up is not clear, but its now departed champion is. It’s such a bad idea, it’s no wonder that only former RIOC AVP Prince Shah openly loved it. With Shah gone now, let’s kill it for good.
by David Stone
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
While we’re at it, let’s snuff the companion bike lane too. Together, we save taxpayers in the neighborhood of $15 million in the process… and maybe a life or two.
If you’d like to follow along, here’s the proposal that RIOC’s lackadaisical board approved a couple of years back without ever waking up but – praise be to whoever you think deserves credit – never acted on.
Goals for the Helix Bike Ramp, According to RIOC
The proposal – see page 3 – lists three.
- Meet State Department of Transportation (SDOT) requirements and American Association of State Highway and Transportation (AASHTO) standards.
- Create a safe connection across the Roosevelt Island bridge that eliminates the vehicular/bike conflicts on the Helix ramp.
- Provide a solution that enhances pedestrian and bicyclist experience.
In fairness, the presentation may have gotten one of the three right – the first one. That’s as far as we or anyone who voted “Yes” on it knows. It mostly looks impressive without necessarily being so.
You can guess why the Death-By-Powerpoint presenter, Prince Shah, saved the visuals for page 8 when he claimed that his favored plan “eliminates the vehicular/bike conflicts on the Helix ramp.”
Because it doesn’t really. It just moves them around and, doing so, makes them worse.
Yes, it sorta “eliminates the vehicular/bike conflicts on the Helix ramp,” but in exchange, it creates vastly greater dangers – forget conflicts – by forcing every bike entering from the bridge to immediately cross two lanes of live car and truck traffic… with poor sight lines accenting the bad judgment.
The magnitude of risk versus the current and other proposed plans is at least 10-fold. That’s obscured by never including drawings of the car and truck lanes in the presentation – or even discussing them, making the crash potential seem smaller than it is.
The deception continues on Page 12 where a healthy grove of crabapple trees stays in the picture, although the helix bike ramp requires destroying them.
(Shah throws more haze on Page 19, depicting an imaginary wooded area replacing the East River. On Page 16, he has boxes ridiculously holding cherry trees where the plan itself envisions – no joke – “boulders.”)
At different times, Shah claimed the crabapple trees would be “relocated” or that they were diseased and must be destroyed. First, anyone observing the trees over the years knows that they are perfectly healthy. And anyone with basic knowledge understands that the bulk of any tree thrives underground, connected its family through root stems and fungal networks, and can’t be moved without uprooting the entire grove.
What’s behind all the misinformation? And why would any conscientious board approve approve a plan so deeply flawed? Unanimously.
If you haven’t shaken your head yet…
You’ll love how the bike ramp plan covers point three – “…a solution that enhances pedestrian and bicyclist experience.”
Discarding the strange claim that the helix bike ramp does something positive or anything at all for pedestrians is easy because it just doesn’t. It doesn’t address foot traffic at all. Anywhere. But the deception is not out of line with the general scheme of the presentation.
Fortunately for Shah, he never tries to explain how it enhances the “bicyclist experience” either because consensus goes in the opposite direction.
Some comments from a recent email exchange among residents…
- “When I first heard we might be getting a bike ramp, I was pleased we were getting one but disappointed that it was not going to be a straight ramp. Trucks struggle up the current helix. So do humans on bikes.”
- “It’s really not nice riding up and down a helix.”
- “I have opposed the helix ramp since the beginning. I look as it as the kiddies table that many bikers would not bother to use. To me it is more dangerous since you are going in a tight curve down or up, more challenging than a ramp.”
- “For the life of me I can’t understand why bikers don’t just use the elevators. It may not be as much fun; it might take a little longer, and it’s a nuisance to get on and off your bike, but…”
No one offered a positive view. It’s the pricey little ramp that can’t find any friends.
Alternatives
In 2015, Cornell Tech engineers volunteered a more direct, far less dangerous straight bike ramp, but in his wisdom, Shah rejects it. His reasons are fuzzy, but he opts for the helix bike ramp instead, ignoring all the potential hazards and, worst of all, the costs.
But even without that, other choices are obvious…
- Any rider can easily coast into Motorgate and cruise down to street level before exiting.
- The Motorgate elevator offers a quick exit to Main Street and a just as easy lift back.
- Kill two birds with one stone: Use a few hundred thousand of the money saved and fix the Motorgate Concourse escalators. Reversing that eyesore of negligence would be invaluable. So, why not do it now while the opportunity is ripe?
Briefly, the Bike Lane
Adding more cake to the Palace of Versailles bike ramp is its companion bike lane.
Because of space limitations along the East Promenade, that lane – it costs more than the ramp – can’t extend any farther than the FDNY water rescue station to the north and Blackwell Park to the south. My guess is that it’s about a quarter-mile before you can have either people out for a walk or out for a ride but not both.
Not only does it border on insanity to believe that this justifies millions in expense, it begs the question of what bike rider gets excited over a quarter-mile ride? Maybe while still on training wheels.
At the same time, leading bicyclists down Main Street where local businesses crave more traffic would be a major boost.
And finally…
Illustrations provided show the bike lane running through the baseball backstop in Firefighters Field, and – somehow – through the NYC Ferry Landing. But in reality, you can’t even get there without bumping pedestrians off the narrow promenade.
Finally, the proposed bike lane blocks access to the promenade for physically challenged individuals all along its length. There are crosswalks, but they don’t allow enough stopping time for a rider going at a normal speed.
So, come on RIOC. Do your job and kill this thing along with the bike lane that wags its tail.
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Simplest and safest solution for cylists is take the garage elevator to the fourth floor and exit onto the bridge.
Absolutely true. And it’s free and available right now.