Itching to shake off winter and get out on the bike path coming to the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge?

Pump your brakes. The path won't open for months.

The new bridge's “shared-use path” promises a seamless pedestrian and bicycle link between Rockland and Westchester. But it's not finished yet.

The New York State Thruway Authority, which owns the $3.98 billion bridge that replaced the Tappan Zee Bridge, will only say that the SUP, as it is called, is scheduled to open in the “second half of 2019.”

"All I've heard is September," said Michael Hays, president of the Rockland Bicycling Club. "Just judging from where they are in construction, it's probably not going to make the summer."

Thruway spokeswoman Jennifer Givner said “we’ll provide an update at the appropriate time.”

The Thruway was similarly opaque about the opening of vehicular traffic on the two-span bridge, keeping that detail under wraps until days before each bridge began to admit vehicles.

Plenty to do

There’s still a lot to do before the path can open. Bridge builder Tappan Zee Constructors' punch list includes:

Erecting the concrete Jersey barrier between the path and vehicular traffic

Finishing the path in South Nyack and connecting it to the yet unbuilt plaza and visitor center in the Exit 10 interchange

Building the rest stops on the bridge

Finishing elements of the plaza in Tarrytown

When it opens, the 12-foot-wide path will occupy the northern edge of the Thruway's Rockland-bound span.

It will have six overlooks, called “belvederes,” cantilevered to extend out over the Hudson from the north face of the bridge's massive blue girders.

Each of the 12-foot-by-60-foot belvederes — the word comes from two Italian words, bel, which means "beautiful," and vedere, which means "view" — will highlight a different north-facing section of the Hudson and its shore.

Light poles along the path have a second, lower, set of overhead lights specifically for the path.

Policies evolve

As construction continues, Givner said, the agency has been meeting with bicycling advocates, state and local officials and the state police, weighing policies for everything from who will patrol the path (state troopers) to whether pedal-assist e-bikes will be allowed (undecided) to the operating hours (undecided) to whether your dog can walk the path with you (also undecided).

Also undecided is if there will be a speed limit for cyclists, what percentage of the path will be earmarked for bikes, and exactly how state troopers will patrol the path, on bikes or motorcycles or cars.

Givner said the agency has been in talks with mayors of the river towns affected. That contact, Givner pointed out, led the Thruway to have the path end inside the Exit 10 interchange, rather than in a South Nyack neighborhood, as had been planned.

The bridge project’s Community Benefits Program, Givner said, “has funded more than $2.5 million in grants for connectivity projects in municipalities near the path. These include bicycle/corridor studies in the towns of Orangetown and Greenburgh and the villages of Nyack and Irvington, as well as a paid parking study in South Nyack.”

Last month, South Nyack Mayor Bonnie Christian and Nyack Mayor Don Hammond huddled with George Paschalis, the Thruway’s deputy project director for outreach, to discuss the signs that will greet cyclists and pedestrians in South Nyack.

While signage is something concrete and controllable, Tarrytown Mayor Drew Fixell said the impact of the SUP is a great unknown.

"The implication of the bike path on the bridge is something we're going to have to wrestle with," Fixell said.

The mayor said the potential impact of an influx of cyclists in his village will require coordination between his police department and state police.

A game-changer

The fact that there will be a regular bicycle link between the counties is a boon for bike advocates, who see it as a transportation game-changer.

For years, the only way to bike across the old Tappan Zee Bridge was to gather sponsors and wait for one morning October, when the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Southern New York held its annual "Great TZ Bike Tour for MS" fundraiser, held from 1998 to 2010, with a one-year break after 9/11.

Beyond that one day a year, cyclists wanting to cross the river had only the George Washington and Bear Mountain bridges.

The Thruway has yet to announce what hours the path will be in operation, a topic of concern to residents who worry about noise and litter and to bike advocates who see the path as a potential Thruway for cyclists.

South Nyack Mayor Bonnie Christian has called for the path to be open from dawn to dusk.

"I think it's a safety issue," Christian said. "We don't need people out there in late in the early morning hours. Nothing good happens in the early morning hours."

Daniel Convissor, the director of the non-profit Bike Tarrytown advocacy group, argues that the path should be open 24/7.

"(The Thruway) is looking at this as a recreational facility, mostly. And I think that's how the mayors in Tarrytown and South Nyack are looking at it, mostly," Convissor said. "But it's really a transportation resource."

"Metro-North runs 22 hours a day here in Tarrytown," he said, standing in Pierson Park, which adjoins the Tarrytown Metro-North station. "People should be able to get to the train and hop on the train anytime day or night and be able to get back to Nyack. The buses are not going to solve that problem. The buses don't run overnight."

Hays, of the Rockland Bicycling Club, agreed. Like everyone else, he's awaiting the final word.

"We've heard a lot of talk," he said. "I don't think anything's settled. I've heard 6 to 10. I've heard it's the same as the George Washington Bridge. (6 a.m. to midnight.) We think it should be the same as the Hudson Link."

The Hudson Link bus service between Rockland and Westchester operates from roughly 4 a.m. to 12:30 a.m.

Last July, Floyd Lapp, a New City resident who is a former New York City planning transportation director, said: “For maximum flexibility, the bike-pedestrian path … must be open for travel 24 hours a day, as are all other transportation modes, rather than merely from dawn to dusk as some would prefer."

The Thruway, Givner said, "will balance use of the path as a transportation facility for cyclists and pedestrians with security and neighborhood concerns."

High Line, Walkway, SUP

Hays said he sees great potential in the SUP to change the way people get to work.

He spoke about a man who lives in New York City and commutes to Summit School in Upper Nyack. Nowadays, Hays said, the man takes his bike on the train to Tarrytown and transfers it to the Hudson Link bus to South Nyack. Once in Rockland, he bikes the rest of the way to Upper Nyack.

"I know he's going to love to be able to bicycle directly," Hays said. "I think there's actually more opportunities than people think for that sort of green commuting."

Whether it's a commuter link, part of a road cyclist's loop or just a spot for families out for a ride, cyclists will have to share the path with pedestrians, who will likely congregate at the belvedere rest areas.

At 3.1 miles long, with a slope that rises from the South Nyack shore to Tarrytown, it will be a workout.

Standing at South Nyack Village Hall, Hays said that while runners might add the 6.2-mile roundtrip to their workout routines, he isn't convinced there will be loads of pedestrians beyond the first belvederes.

"Walking from here, that first belvedere is a pretty good hike. It's almost a quarter-mile before you actually get on the bridge, so we'll just have to see how that works out," he said.

Each belvedere will have its own name and distinct look and will provide a vista of a particular stretch of the river and its shore. From west to east, they are: Fish and Ships; Palisades; Painters Point; River Crossing; Half Moon; and Tides of Tarrytown.

"It's like our own kind of version of the High Line," Hays said, invoking one of New York City's most popular attractions, a 1.45-mile park atop an old freight line. The High Line draws an estimated 5 million visitors per year, and is open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. in spring and fall, 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. in summer, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in winter.

A closer comparison might be to the 1.28-mile Walkway Over the Hudson State Historic Park spanning the Hudson between Poughkeepsie and Highland. It draws nearly 600,000 visitors a year, and is open from 7 a.m. to sunset.

Still, the High Line and the Walkway are places of relative solitude: one, filled with grasses and flowers is an urban oasis; the other is car-free, high above the Hudson. The SUP will be alongside a major eight-lane highway.

Of all the unanswered questions, the biggest one may be: When they build it, will they come?

While the path could bring day-trippers and families from Westchester, Hays said it could also ease congestion of another sort, taking road bikers — the Lycra-clad "people everybody seems to hate," he said with a laugh — out of the picture.

"Those people will use the bridge a lot, as part of a circular route," he said. "I think people should really appreciate that fact, because that will keep the road cyclists perhaps off the other streets in Nyack that they've been on in the past."

Police presence

Since the bridge is Thruway property, Givner said “State Police Troop T is responsible and has jurisdiction for Thruway Authority properties. The New York State Police will patrol the path and its facilities.”

Asked if there will be a new patrol unit to staff the path, Givner would only say that details are still being finalized.

Trooper Tara McCormick, spokeswoman for New York State Police’s Troop T, said, "We do have motorcycle and bike patrols, but I don’t know if that’s what they’re choosing to go about enforcing anything on the bridge.”

McCormick said staffing the SUP could have an impact on Troop T Zone 1, the area of State Police that stretches from Newburgh to New Rochelle.

“It could be absorbed into another post of the station that would cover that area, or they could make it a separate, smaller detail,” McCormick said.

Input, to a degree

Convissor said that while cycling advocates have also been recognized as part of the process, he felt it took a letter-writing campaign for his concerns to be taken seriously.

For example, he said, plans at the Rockland landing called for a swing gate, which would force cyclists to stop, dismount, push the gate open and then start biking, only to have to repeat the process at the other end.

"We said, 'Hey, this is really a bad idea for safety and for convenience.' And they said 'Yeah, thanks for your input.' And then they weren't going to do anything. Then we mounted a campaign and got 19 organizations to contact the governor and really put pressure on. And then, they were like 'Oh that's a great idea, Dan. Yeah. We should not have those gates there.' They're listening but only when they're pushed to listen."

Convissor said the Thruway is uniquely unqualified to deal with a shared-use path.

"The Thruway is a highway organization. They're running for cars, they're running for buses and trucks. That's their job, every day," he said. "But they're being put in charge of a facility that's meant for people to walk and bike on and that's not their forte. They really should seek more expertise on the project."

In short, Convissor said, they should ask themselves: "What would the Netherlands do?"

The Dutch, he said, are constantly revising their transit plans to make things more efficient.

If they looked at the SUP, he said, the Dutch would make the path wider near the shorelines, where more pedestrians can be expected to congregate before deciding to turn back. A glut of walkers, he said, will cause a bottleneck and holds the potential for bike-pedestrian conflict.

"It really should have a separate bike path and separate walking path and that's how they do things in the Netherlands," he said. "Then there's no conflict. You create a safe comforting environment for everybody."

More from this author: Peter D. Kramer has written about the Old Croton Aqueduct trail, about the Hudson Link bus service on the Mario Cuomo Bridge and about how development could affect traffic in Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown. He also wondered recently if the suburbs could consider an alternative to congestion pricing to claw back money from Gothamites.

While you wait

Can't wait to get out? Here are three great options.

The High Line, New York City's elevated park on an old freight rail line. Entrances at Gansevoort St. and Washington St., 14th St., 16th St., 17th St., 20th St., 23rd St., 26th St., 28th St., 30th St., the corner of 30th St. and 11th Ave., and the corner of 34th St. and 12th Ave. 7 a.m. - 10 p.m. from April 1 through May 31. thehighline.org

Walkway Over the Hudson State Historic Park, high over the Hudson between Poughkeepsie and Highland. Entrance at 61 Parker Ave., Poughkeepsie and at 87 Haviland Road, Highland. 7 a.m. to sunset. walkway.org

Old Croton Aqueduct, one of Westchester's iconic places, the 26-mile trail from Yonkers to Cortlandt sits atop the massive pipe that once supplied drinking water to New York City. Open from dawn to dusk. aqueduct.org