Rockland County Legislator Nancy Low-Hogan says she’s opposed to a plan presented by the South Nyack TZ Bridge Task Force last week to demolish Village Hall and replace it with a 22 spot parking lot to support the new Tappan Zee Bridge Pedestrian/Bike Shared Use Path (SUP). The plan, officially abandoned by Mayor Bonnie Christian and committee member Connie Coker two days after it was presented to the public, called for New York State to build a new South Nyack Village Hall and police station at the Olsen Center property in the village.
Assuming that it would cost at least $5 million to acquire the Olsen parcel and construct a new building, the plan proposed by Christian and Coker would have cost New York State at least $227,000 per parking spot.
“The Village of South Nyack cannot provide the only access and parking for the Shared Use Path,” says Low-Hogan, a former South Nyack Village Trustee. “The location of the terminus in a residential neighborhood in South Nyack is not appropriate. The streets do not have the capacity to handle the anticipated pedestrian, bike and car volume.”
TZB Public Meeting: Thurs Mar 27
The annual Rockland County New NY Bridge public meeting and project update will be held on Thurs March 27 from 6:30p-8p at Nyack High School Auditorium, 360 Christian Herald Road in Upper Nyack.
On a busy summer weekend, Nyack currently gets as many as 5,000 cyclists riding North on 9W and Piermont Rd through the river villages. A similar venue in Poughkeepsie, The Walkway over the Hudson, receives about 500,000 visitors each year.
The South Nyack TZ Bridge committee was loudly criticized at a community meeting last Thursday for not seeking adequate public input and failing to coordinate their work with the adjacent villages and Rockland County. “We need a more comprehensive approach to the Shared Use Path on the Tappan Zee Bridge,” said Low-Hogan. “The Village of Nyack and all of Rockland County will benefit from this tourist attraction. Nyack and all of Rockland County will need to be included in the plan in specific ways, especially related to parking and access to the path.”
Low-Hogan says the that NYS Thruway Exit 10, land that used to belong to the village and is currently used as a staging site for construction, is a better location for the SUP terminus. In October 2010, the NYS Thruway presented a plan to reconfigure the existing 360 degree Exit 10 off ramp into two compact rotaries. However, that popular plan was scrapped when Governor Andrew Cuomo decided to downsize the original $16 billion “corridor project” to the current more limited Hudson “crossing” project.
