Push for Safe Bike Lanes Between Existing Routes
Community Board 1 (CB1) is pushing the City’s Department of Transportation to plan and implement a protected crosstown bicycle route between the Hudson River Greenway and the Brooklyn Bridge.
At CB1’s November meeting, a succession of Lower Manhattan residents and workers who rely on bike transportation in Lower Manhattan urged the Board to get behind this proposal. Andrea Peterson observed, “for more than 40 years, I’ve been riding a bike from my home on Lafayette Street to Tribeca. As an arts administrator at a number of Tribeca organizations, as a parent, taking my children to and from school, and as an art teacher at P.S. 150 for over 20 years, the riding in the neighborhood has become unbearable. Crossing West Street, where there are numerous schools for of all ages, has become a nightmare. Currently, all the options are unsafe.”
David Warren said, “I commute every day from Midtown West to the Brooklyn Bridge and home, and it’s very unsafe. We’re not protected as cyclists. When I ride, I pass schools kids and I pass elderly people [on bikes] and they all really need some form of protection.”
Barak Friedman noted, “the West Side Greenway is the most heavily used bike lane in North America. And the new Brooklyn Bridge bike path also takes in thousands and thousands of cyclists. So having a connection between the two is really important.” About the existing, unprotected bike lanes on Warren (eastbound) and Reade (westbound) Streets, he continued, “the painted bike lanes are always blocked, so it’s pretty dangerous. And having to circumnavigate in and out of the bike lane makes it chaotic.”
Andrew Rosenthal said, “I also am always trying to find a route from the West Side Greenway to get across to the bridges and this bike lane is going to help people.”
Kathy Park Price reflected, “this critical connection needs to happen before anyone is hurt along that route.”
CB1’s resolution notes, “safer (protected) bike infrastructure is needed to encourage use of this low-cost, zero-emission and space-efficient mode of transportation, especially as more cargo bikes are encouraged for last mile deliveries,” and, “the creation of protected two-way bike travel in order to connect the Brooklyn Bridge and the Hudson River Greenway, as well as important destinations for intra-district travel, is urgently needed.”
While the measure observed that “Chambers Street directly links Stuyvesant High School, the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) and City Hall plus nearby Pace University, four important destinations for intra-district travel as well as for commuting via the Brooklyn Bridge or the Greenway,” the resolution took no position on where the proposed bike lane should be located. CB1 concluded by urging the City DOT “to study, design and install eastbound and westbound protected bike lanes between Route 9A and Centre Street at the Brooklyn Bridge.”