A 126-mile long/24-mile wide island off the coast of New York City (and, in fact, including two NYC counties — Queens and Brooklyn — on its land mass), Long Island (specifically Nassau and Suffolk counties) was a bastion of suburbia during the 1950s and beyond as potato farms got converted to subdivisions for returning soldiers and their burgeoning families. I grew up there in the biggest bike boom in U.S. history in the 1960s and 1970s. I’ve been riding a bike since I was five years old.
It’s ironic that this supposedly family-friendly place is so far behind on bike-friendliness today (in contrast — note that both Queens and Brooklyn are recognized as two of the best places for riding bikes in the USA today). However, Long Island left us a gift from the 1970s that I finally had the chance to ride for the first time, during Round America with a Duck — the Wantagh Parkway Path to Jones Beach.
Stunningly beautiful and completely separated from the parkway but running along it, this path takes you through a small stand of woods and then through swaying beach grasses and marshland right to the Atlantic Ocean. There’s a whole surprise story about it in my book.
During my 10,000-mile journey, I only encountered one other bike path running alongside a highway, and that was when I rode from Boulder to Denver in Colorado.
Can you imagine if all highways had bike paths alongside them? I can.
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