Bike path on Van Wyck Expressway (I-678) entering Kennedy Airport?

A very narrow decorative-brick path, about 2 feet wide, runs alongside the right (slow) lane of the 6-lane Van Wyck Expressway, I-678, in both directions as it approaches, enters, and leaves Kennedy Airport. The brick path is separated from traffic by the right-shoulder highway guardrail. The I-678 roadway has no shoulder, actually, and the guardrail immediately abuts the right traffic lane. On the other side of the guardrail, right up against it, runs this brick path, parallel to the roadway. It seems like a bikepath. The same type path also runs alongside various roads throughout JFK Airport. There are wide, crushed-stone entrances to this brick path at various points along the service road running parallel to the Van Wyck, called South Service Road.

Motorists, then, on the Van Wyck toward Kennedy airport, would see: Their southbound 3 lanes of Van Wyck Expressway; then, to the right of that, the guardrail; then immediately to the right of the guardrail the brick path; then, aside that, a wide grassy area with periodically-spaced mulched beds; then South Service Road to the right of that.

A policeman saw me entering the brick path at one of these access points on my bicycle, chirped his siren as he drove up behind me onto the crushed-stone access area, and told me not to enter the path “because you’ll get hit.” I don’t think he was aware the path existed until that minute and stopped me because he thought I was going to ride on the expressway. There is no chance, in any case, of getting hit by a car since the guardrail separates the path from the roadway.

As it turned out, I did ride the paths at various times during the afternoon. But I didn’t encounter - or even see from a distance, on the other side of the highway for instance - another bicyclist or pedestrian on these paths all day. What are these odd paths? Are they bike paths? How far north (away from Kennedy) on the Van Wyck Expressway do they extend?

One reason I call them odd is their narrow width. Two bicycles could not pass each other without one going off onto the grass. Also, lampposts are situated in the middle of the path, obstructing bicycle travel. And there are periodically-spaced mulched beds sloping down to the path which have a certain type of thorny bush whose broken-off branches seem to have washed down onto the brick path along with some of the mulch. At first I just rode over these small twigs and mulch until noticing that the thorns embed themselves in the bicycle tires. I meticulously picked around 25 out of my tires after realizing this. They were sharp and long but did not cause a flat or even any loss of air, surprisingly.

Here’s a picture of the path on Google Street View. Wait for the Street View - it takes about 5 or 7 seconds after the map appears. The bike path (if that’s what it is) is just outside the guardrail.
http://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=40.648945,-73.803886&spn=0,359.997589&z=19&layer=c&cbll=40.649165,-73.80384&panoid=k-hOtoBoiF6_sjYFwgEtjA&cbp=12,7.65,0,8.9
It’s really quite nice as a bike path. Very smooth, as you can see from the picture.

I’m not sure if the info here will help, but looking at the Street View, I think you’re mistaking the concrete base of the guardrail as a path.

What you’re seeing is what the guardrail is set in; it’s not meant to be a travel lane for anyone.

Also, as a US Interstate highway, I believe the ‘no pedestrians/horse/hitchiking/bicycles’ rule is in effect.

I mean, you could try, but I’m pretty sure the PA police would be introducing themselves to you long before you got near the terminals. Also, the configuration of the roads and their entrance/exit ramps would preclude you from finding any direct route without crossing an active roadway.

As an aside: I drive to JFK more often than I care to; I’ve never seen anyone along the roadways, on foot or on a bike.

This is true. Each time I’m forced to cross an entrance/exit ramp in order to continue bicycling the path, I dismount and walk directly across by the shortest route. I think I’m legal in doing this, but I could be wrong. There is at least one instance, though, of gaps in the (bike)path where an entrance ramp to the expressway continues until it ‘becomes’ the next exit ramp - in other words one continuous lane (although not one of the 6 traffic lanes). Here you must bicycle on the shoulder of this entrance/exit lane. In addition, there is one other place where you must bicycle on a wide sidewalk (under the runway bridges where the airplanes cross the Expressway, lining up for takeoff). Here also the brick path is nonexistent.

No, I am biking on the variegated decorative-brick path adjacent and to the right of (what I think you are calling) the white concrete base of the guardrail. On the Google Street View link in my previous post, it is the two-toned reddish and off-white patterned brick pathway just under and to the right of the guardrail. The guardrail uprights cast their shadows on the brick. From that you can judge its width. It is plenty wide for one bicyclist to ride comfortably but if another bicyclist is met (or pedestrian) one of the two will have to get off the path onto the grass. It continues into the airport and is of a discontiguous character there also. It pops up at numerous places, then ends for seemingly no reason, with no natural or convenient way to get off it. Sometimes I had to just lift my bicycle over the guardrail to get off of the path and onto an airport roadway (not the Expressway).

My question still is, though, if this is not a bike path, then what is it? It begs to be used as such in that it is smooth and handsome and has specially constructed access points from South Service Road at regular intervals. True, you must dismount to cross entrance/exit ramps and there are other inconveniences such as the lamposts set in the middle of the path. But whatever entity designed and constructed it seems to have had in mind its use as some sort of pedestrian or bicycling pathway. If not, why is it decorative? Why is it smooth? Why is it there at all? Why not just bring the grass and mulched beds all the way down to the guardrail?

This is correct absolutely and without any exceptions. I was the path’s only user. And as I said in my previous post, I don’t think the policeman I talked with knew it was there either, even though we conversed on the access area to it.

Here is a view of the access point to the path, the one at which the policeman pulled up behind me and chirped his siren.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=kennedy+airport&sll=40.65058,-73.805659&sspn=0.002035,0.004823&ie=UTF8&split=1&rq=1&ev=p&radius=0.13&hq=kennedy+airport&hnear=&ll=40.651036,-73.805509&spn=0,359.995177&t=h&z=18&layer=c&cbll=40.650901,-73.805417&panoid=D2zuLaKbf-gpUVhF1ih-KA&cbp=12,286.98,0,20.15

Postcards, the link you provide in your first paragraph is interesting. They are discussing this path, it seems, back when the JFK Airtrain pylons were under construction, which was around 2000. This brick path may have been in existence at least since then, if that is in fact what they are discussing. If so, I’m surprised it is in such good shape. There were very few instances of uplifted bricks causing anything less than smooth bicycling. The path seems well-maintained also. It is relatively free (for New York) of glass and debris. One extraneous item I found along it was a worn-down edger blade from a hand-held gasoline edger. The grass/brick border did show signs of being edged recently (at the end of last year’s growing season possibly).

It might seem I’m making too much of this path. But intermittent and problematical as it is, still it is the first time I have come across a method of truly and safely bicycling along a superhighway. JFK, with all its complexity, is a user-friendly airport and this seems like it might be a component of that attribute. I have read that this section of I-678 was constructed by the Port Authority as a part of the airport, and that might explain the continuity in design of the path as it approaches the airport and its appearance on other roads within the airport.

After the policeman questioned me (politely) about my intentions and reason for being there, and recommended I do not continue onto the path from (what I believe to be) the access point, I got off the access point and back onto South Service Road. But soon, being increasingly convinced of the path’s safety and intended-for-bicycling purpose, I re-entered it at a point further toward the airport, specifically around the area of that pedestrian walkway across the Expressway. Thereafter I bicycled the path intermittently but pretty thoroughly. At one point, the same policeman and another police car (following him) passed me northbound (I was northbound also) while I was on the path. They weren’t obviously speeding (toward some radio call) so I figure he could have confronted me again, or at least chirped his siren again and gestured for me to get off, if he had wanted to. I would have complied. But neither of them did. I took that as a tacit sign that he had considered the subject and came to the conclusion I was using the path for its intended purpose. I could be wrong, of course.

In all my bicycling and walking of New York - and I am much more than a casual tourist, I try to get to the heart of New York, and I do have periodic conversations with police not of my own choosing - I have never encountered one even remotely rude or discouraging word. They question me, but invariably allow me to continue on my way. The pattern ‘held’ in this JFK encounter, I think. As I said earlier, I really think the policeman was unaware of this brick path, thought I was about to enter the Expressway itself, and that is why he confronted me.

Keep doing what you think it the “right” thing and you’re going to end up on page 3 of the local newspaper. I personally don’t think that bricked area was intended for anything other than a buffer between the roadway and the dirt and grassy area to the right. Had it not been there, the highway dept would have probably put basic concrete to do the same thing. Also, don’t be fool to think that the guardrail will protect you from traffic. Only the smallest of cars and motorcycles will bounce off of it… everything else will destroy it.

Also, you have to think that you yourself may cause an accident inadvertently with passerbys watching you and not paying attention to the roadway. It’s already bad enough with people talking on their cellphones and other things they do while driving.

Mark Ryle, from your description it really does not sound like a bicycle path to me. It may be smooth and have some access points, but really, only having room for 1 cyclist/pedestrian, having lamposts in the middle of the path, guardrails that box you in, causing you to lift your bicycle over them, and at-grade crossings of the exits, all of this points to it not being a path. There have to be other paths that aren’t littered with inconveniences like this, right?

Yes, Apex Rogers, the guardrails do box you in. And yes, Race Harley, I hadn’t thought about the distracting nature to motorists of such an unlikely presence as a bicyclist at the guardrail, nor of the guardrail’s being unlikely to fully protect someone right next to it in the case of a traffic mishap. It also comes to mind that on such a narrow path, with obstructions, there is a possibility a bicyclist could topple over the guardrail. A bicycle path, it is true, would never have been made so narrow, it doesn’t seem to me now.

Yes, Apex Rogers, there is an alternative to this path - the South Service Road which runs parallel to the Expressway.

After considering what you and postcards have said, I don’t think this is a bike path anymore. There are too many things that just don’t add up about it. It must have some functionality, but I don’t think it is a bike path.

Mark, you may want to check out the NYC Cycling Map available as a PDF from that page or by calling 311 (from in the City) or 212-NEW-YORK from outside. It’s an incredibly good resource for bikers or walkers in the City.

If you look at the Van Wyck and Kennedy Airport areas on the map, it doesn’t show any current bike paths, just some proposed ones in JFK itself. Whatever you’re discussing doesn’t appear to be an official bke path.

Noted and appreciated Billdo. I have an old copy (2004) of that cycling map. Time to reacquaint myself with the new one.

Thank you everyone for your help. I do feel I know more of the character of this path now, after reading everyone’s comments. I still would like to know its engineering/design reason for being, if anyone has any insights. Thanks again everyone.