Meetings Planned For New Path
The Department of Transportation (DOT) will hold a series of interactive workshops, with two in Queens, on the Jamaica Bay Greenway implementation plan beginning on Tuesday, Sept. 30, it was announced.
The Greenway is a proposed 28-mile biking and walking path with sections already active in parts of Brooklyn, Howard Beach and Broad Channel.
Eleven miles of the Greenway are already complete and visited by more than 100,000 people each year, according to the DOT.
The first workshop is scheduled for the end of the month and will be held in Canarsie, Brooklyn. Following meetings will be held Oct. 7 in Howard Beach at the Old Mill Yacht Club, and Oct. 16 in Broad Channel at Scholars Academy. Both are scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m.
These workshops will be the second in a series of three held by transportation officials to hear from residents on the plan. At the meetings, residents will have the opportunity to ask questions and hear ideas on the Greenway from their neighbors.
The Greenway, when complete, is envisioned as a continuous recreation loop that roughly follows the Belt Parkway through many parts of Queens and Brooklyn.
Almost 300,000 people live within a 20-minute walk of the Greenway, according to the Regional Planning Association, an independent urban research and advocacy organization that “works to improve the prosperity, infrastructure, sustainability and quality of life of the New York- New Jersey-Connecticut metropolitan region,” it was noted.
Officials hope the completed Greenway will bring in millions of annual visitors and serve as an passage to more than 10,000 acres of federal, state and city parkland, according to officials.
Though sections of the Greenway were rebuilt or are currently under construction, many parts still need better signage, paving, road crossings and access links.
In addition, the Greenway is one component of an accord to improve parkland in and around Jamaica Bay. The effort also reflects a strategy to improve access to the waterfront of Queens and Brooklyn.
