2003 reports on connecting between South and North Trailways |
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| October 2003, Joe on
NYC.bicycles: (replying
to Ken's report below)
You don't have to go over any fence to enter from Warehouse Lane. The entrance to this section is on the left of the UPS driveway entrance. You do have to get off the bike, however, as the entrance is tight. It's between a stairway and the driveway. This 1/4 mile section which is dirt right now was rideable the last time I went through (23C tires). The fence just south of Eastview was put up a year ago to keep people out while construction was ongoing. Construction stopped for 10 months and someone cut a hole in it so people could get through. The construction is now done to Ridgwood so the fence should be coming down. Probably waiting for some kind of official opening. But the hole works in the meantime. By the way the distance from the South Trailway at 119 to the entrance at Warehouse Lane is just 1 mile. Via Hays St, Raceway Lane, 9A. Your only on 9A for about 100 yds, Raceway lane to Warehouse Lane. This section of 9A (Elmsford) is in my opinion one of the worst roads in all of Westchester for cycling.
September 2003, Ken on NYC.bicycles: New connection and new pavement: There's a couple of miles of smooth fresh pavement now on the old railroad bed in Elmsford running along the Saw Mill River between the Rt 119 /Tarrytown Rd and Rt 100C at the Eastview park & ride -- though not the whole thing. Enough is now paved to make a different and much nicer route connecting South to North than Sharon and I were able to find back in April -- see details below. New PavementThe paved trailway now extends south from Rt 100C at Eastview as far as Ridgewood Drive. Further South from Ridgewood Drive toward Warehouse Lane it looked like dirt, perhaps under construction -- I didn't check it. I'm not sure this section is actually open: The access from Ridgewood Dr was free and unobstructed, but I did not see the usual official sign I remember from other access points for the Westchested County Trailways. The fresh smooth pavement was covered by lots of fallen twigs, like hardly anybody's been on it. Just before I got to Eastview, I ran into something like a chain-link fence blocking the whole way. But there was a neatly cut hole on its west side, so I went thru that. When I looked back at the other side of that fence, I saw a sign that said something like This entrance closed, Use other entrance -- which is what I had done, but I'm still not sure what it all meant. New Connection between South and NorthHere's how I connected the South section of Westchester County Trailways to the North section: South County Trailway comes to its northern end where it hits Rt 119 / Tarrytown Rd (between Saw Mill River Parkway and Rt 9A), next to Rini's restaurant. I went a tiny bit Right on Rt 119 East as I went straight across onto an unsigned street that looks a bit like a parking lot. Actually it's called Vreeland Ave (the entrance is just West of the traffic light for Rt 9A / N Central Ave). Straight north on Vreeland Ave underneath the NY Thruway all the way to its end (along the way its name changes to Hayes St). Right on North Payne St, go past signs for "Elmsford Raceway", ends at a busy road which is Rt 9A. Left on Rt 9A North. High-traffic-volume high-speed road. Four lanes not very wide, no shoulders.
Go north past Sam's Club, then at the start of a big uphill, at traffic light by Princeton Ski shop (with an inline skate department): Left onto Fairview Park Drive (West-bound). Then after curving right, turn Left at sign for 199/201 Ridgewood Dr / Airborne Express / American Univeral Supply. Go a little ways West on this, then Right onto 8-foot-wide paved trailway (unsigned), and straight on this for a mile or so. Straight across bridge over Rt 100C -- soon see paved access path coming in from the west from over the top of a hill from Eastview Park & Ride (and from the Tarrytown Lakes extension of the Westchester Trailways). North County Trailway continues north from there for another 20 miles. It was all in good condition. Pretty crossing the Croton Reservoir, and a nice food stop at Yorktown Heights. May 2003, Ken: Tony and Sharon and I tried to make the connection on a Saturday -- first time any of us had tried tried it in the south-to-north direction. After riding South Country Trailway to its north end, we rode on the streets to Warehouse Lane (with way more inconvenient traffic crossings than riding the opposide way north-to-south). But from Warehouse Lane we couldn't find the access there to the dirt section at the end of North County Trailway. Seemed like there was a new chain-link fence in the place where Ed had found the trailway in his report (and where I remembered it from two years ago). There was lots of new construction going on to the south toward the animal shelter. So we gave up and rode north on Rt 9A. This featured a long climb up a hill with no shoulder with lots of cars and trucks going past. (Last year when Sharon and I rode this road in the opposite direction was no way as bad as this). We took the exit for Rt 100C, turned left to go west, and almost made the mistake of turning left again to follow the sign for 100C, but then recognized that we need to bear Right to go down (and under) the Eastview corporate, then up the hill to the Eastview Park & Ride, then a right turn onto the North County Trailway to check out the paved sections. Seemed nice as usual going north, we turned around to go south-bound and crossed the bridge over Saw Mill River Parkway -- and ran into a pretty serious chain-link fence across the trailway, with a sign that said something like This Entrance Closed. So we just gave up and continued on our trip. Until the connection thru Warehouse Lane is working reliably, seems to me it's better to make this connection in the north-to-south direction. |
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