Traffic Notes

for NYC to Bear Mountain Adventure

This route has a larger number of miles with moderate and high volumes of motor vehicle traffic than most routes on this website.   And there are specific road sections that have greater traffic-interaction risks which may require "advanced" traffic-handling skills -- see the Resources.

Here are some notes on traffic at some points on the route: 

• Seven Lakes Drive intersection with Route 6 at circle 

This is a traffic circle (or "rotary") with two lanes around the circle, and no shoulder.  The turn for Route 6 East is the second exit after the entrance from Seven Lakes Drive.  So getting there requires getting past the first exit, which is for the Palisades Interstate Parkway South-bound.

What we do here is to wait at the Seven Lakes Drive entrance for a break in the traffic, then enter the circle and immediately start riding in the middle of its outer lane.  (Vehicle drivers who want to go faster are free to go past us using the inner lane).  As we come to the first exit, we signal left and move into left one-third of the outer lane of the circle -- to make it completely clear to vehicle drivers that we are not turning right at the first exit.  Once past that one, we move back into the middle of the outer lane, signal right, and at the next exit (for "Bear Mountain") turn right into the middle of the right lane of Route 6 East. 

• Route 6 East-bound lanes from Seven Lakes Drive to Palisades Parkway

There are two east-bound lanes, with little or no shoulder.  Route 6 is the major east-west road around here.  But fortunately at the times we have been there on weekends, there has not been much traffic in this section.  Perhaps this is because Route 6 East-bound has only one lane going in this direction for several miles before this, and here it has just now widened to two lanes. 

So it has worked well for us to simply ride in the right lane, about 3 feet out from the edge.  Vehicle drivers can use the left lane to go past us. 

• Palisades Interstate Parkway North-bound  

There are two north-bound lanes carrying very-high-speed vehicle traffic, whose drivers are in no way expecting to encounter a bicycle.  There is no shoulder.  We strongly recommend not riding in either lane of the PIP.  

Instead we always walk or ride our bicycle on the grass on the right side of the roadway, and then continue on the grass alongside the exit ramp (with no shoulder) curving right.  We get back onto the pavement only after the exit ramp has fully merged into the park road going east toward Perkins Memorial Drive.  There's some interesting rocks beside the grass, so it's actually not a bad place to take a little rest from riding. 

For first doing the merge from Route 6 into the north-bound PIP lanes, we have found that there is a space at the merge-point to right of the Route 6 lanes where we can stop and look at the oncoming traffic in the PIP lanes and wait for a good opening to safely run across to the grass on the other side of the PIP lanes. 

• Seven Lakes Drive

This a beautiful road to ride on in low traffic, and it does have reasonable shoulders for almost all of its section on this route [as of September 2002] -- but during the summer beach season it can get heavy traffic on weekends and holidays, and we've heard from some riders that it can be much less pleasant then.  Perhaps this could also be a problem on peak fall foliage viewing days.

• the park road between the Palisades Parkway and the Bear Mountain Circle

same comment as for Seven Lakes Drive above.

• three other traffic circles (in section B)

These are on Seven Lakes Drive and on the park road near Bear Mountain.  We use standard traffic interaction techniques, like described in the Resources. 

• intersection of Route 9W South with right turn just south of Short Clove Rd (in section C) 

We find this intersection awkward for four reasons: (a) it comes immediately after an uphill left turn from Short Clove Rd; (b) there can be lots of vehicle traffic; (c) the right-turn lane for the other road leaves little or no shoulder; (d) it's all uphill, so it's hard to get through it quickly. 

When Sharon and I were there in September 2002, we knew we would be slow going up the hill on our tandem, and we were tired after 70 miles of riding already.  So when we made the left turn from Short Clove Rd, we just pulled over into the south-bound shoulder of Route 9W (since there is a reasonable shoulder before the right-turn lane starts) and thought about how to handle it.  When the light turned green, we waited for the south-bound traffic to clear out, and then rode into the left lane of Route 9W South (for going straight) and rode up to the traffic light, which by then had turned red.  So we waited there on the right edge of the left lane, and when the light turned green, we continued south on Route 9W.