Walking Over Water

Yesterday was a delightful early fall day, a perfect time for a walk in the air. Anyone who has traversed New York City’s High Line vertical linear park along the West Side of Manhattan knows it presents an exhilarating experience. Gilda and I have walked it several times, but Sunday’s stroll took place some 90 miles to the north, across the Walkway Over the Hudson, from Poughkeepsie on the eastern end to Highland and back.

A converted cantilevered and truss railroad bridge opened in 1888 and mostly abandoned after a fire in 1974, the structure now is the world’s longest elevated pedestrian bridge, soaring 212 feet above the Hudson River. The walkway across the river is 1.28 miles. If you combine it with a walk across the nearby Mid-Hudson Bridge, built for cars, trucks and pedestrians in 1930, the entire loop is an invigorating 4.5 miles.

Since it opened in 2009, each year the Walkway Over the Hudson State Historic Park has attracted some 600,000 amblers and bike riders, even dogs on leashes.

Linear parks are all the rage these days, so much so that one Westchester County official is suggesting the Tappan Zee Bridge linking the the county to Rockland County be converted to such a use when a replacement bridge is erected. Of course, even with the project being fast-tracked by the Obama administration it will be years before a new bridge is built. And there are questions about the wisdom of converting the Tappan Zee to pedestrian use given its steep mid-span incline and, equally important, the appeal the bridge has had in the past to people who choose to end their lives by jumping off its superstructure.

The Walkway Over the Hudson did not ignore suicide considerations. At several points along the walkway mental health telephone hotlines were available for use by any troubled soul. While we were there, no one fortunately was using the phone.