Steve B.

As per The NY Times:

Car Lanes to Become Bike Lanes on 2 Major New York City Bridges

Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to add bike lanes on the Brooklyn and the Queensboro Bridges to encourage cycling as the city recovers from the pandemic.

New York City’s slow transformation away from a vehicle-oriented metropolis will soon get a visible and significant boost: Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to close a lane on both the Brooklyn and Queensboro Bridges and reserve them for bicyclists.

Mr. de Blasio will announce the new cycling plan, known as “Bridges for the People,” at his final State of the City speech on Thursday.

The city will ban cars from the inner lane of the Manhattan-bound side of the Brooklyn Bridge to build the lane and make the existing promenade area at the center of the bridge for pedestrians only, barring cyclists.

niliraga 

especially makes sense given that the manhattan-bound bridge is fed by two single lanes of traffic, and broadens out to 3 lanes over the span, only to compress back down to narrower off ramps. without vehicles needing to jostle back into fewer lanes coming off the bridge, removing a car lane for this might actually improve things for vehicle traffic as well as bike traffic.

Vismund B

This is exciting news. The mixing of pedestrians and bicycles can be very dangerous on the Queensboro bridge. Especially at the entrance / exits.

Rage

Great to hear. Now we need to get a bike lane on the Verrazano.

niliraga 

and hopefully one with a dam' fine view from midspan!

Rage

That would be awesome. I hope they put some thought into it if it ever happens.
I’m actually not so crazy about how the new lane on the Brooklyn bridge is going to be tucked away from the panoramic views afforded by its present iteration/configuration. But it’s gotta be way safer’n the way it is presently. It’s just a ridiculous clusterfutz the way it is now.

To those people unfamiliar with cycling the Brooklyn bridge bike path and interested in some utter insanity, check out some videos on YouTube. It is off the hook dumb how they have it now lol.

UniChris

That's probably a good thing actually, if it discourages the kind of tourist gawking and photo-ops that so plagued the existing path.

For sake of comparison, think of that picturesque "bike-only" path winding a block through Battery Park between South Ferry and the southernmost Bowling Green. It's just too darn pretty, that pedestrians insist on strolling through what is the only legal bike routing, rather than the gratuitously wide pedestrian-only sidewalk immediately to the east of it.

Being stuck in the middle of the car lanes hopefully nixes some of the "but I brought a citibike" photo-stop-ism

And it might not be only a cycling a concern: a longstanding argument against lane conversion was the claim that a dense crowd of people presents more load per square foot than automobiles. At first intuition that seems absurd, but packing 20-30 standing adults into the footprint of a car in bumper-to-bumper traffic doesn't really seem hard at all. To put some "official" numbers on it, a 60 foot subway car has a standing capacity of ~200 people, and a typical automobile is 15 feet long, so that's actually 50 people replacing a car. If we say 4000 pounds for the car and even just 100 for the people, that's already heavier, with the people on diets and the the car bumpers literally touching.

So making it an unattractive place for sightseeing is probably a plus.

Rage

I guess you got a point but I am going to miss that view.

Walkerportis

de Blasio doing some good things for the city.

HelenP

I was on the relatively new Brooklyn Bridge bike path recently and the darkness, view and sounds of the highway isn’t pleasant. But it’s so much better!

I ride for transportation and those tourists with their cameras and selfie sticks are on a whole other planet from commuters. They’re in their tourist world of vacation, smiles, and sightseeing, inevitably always surprised/panicked by incoming cyclists while their obliviously on the bike path.
You can’t exactly blame them for the attraction either; it’s so beautiful and elevation just makes it brighter! But the disorder, I felt did come at the expense of cyclists.

So what a refreshing change!

I know us cyclists come in different flavors in the city, but IMO, you can dismount and walk across the bridge if the scenery is too costly to miss out on.

​​​​​

hotbike

CSX Freight Freemont Secondary

Not open yet





I’m trying to photograph the Manhattan Bridges with my SJ4000WiFi camera. Glad I saw your post.

hotbike

Tillary Street

The new Bike Lane segregates the cyclists from the tourists and vendors, seen adjacent to the bike lane here.






And the Queensboro. An advisory was recently issued regarding the danger of mopeds and motor scooters present to pedestrians.

Digger Goreman

Now if only Metro Atlanta can wake up and follow suit....

zacster

I stopped crossing into New Jersey on the GWB because of the ramp on the Manhattan side. I'll start going again when the new ramps open on the north side of the bridge.

And Gov. Hochul is at least aware of the MTA's resistance to cycling on any of its facilities. I'd love to see the 4 MTA bridges that already have paths, Marine Park, Cross Bay, RFK, and Henry Hudson, have the signs taken down that forbid cycling. And let's get a bikeway added to the VNB, Whitestone and Throgs Neck bridges too.

hotbike

I took this photo, in April last year, I’ve never been across the GWB on a bicycle. I heard you have to portage your bike up stairs? Is that true?

I hope we get bike lanes on the Verrazano, Throgs Neck, and Whitestone.
Will we ever get the Lincoln Tunnel or the Holland? Maybe when all cars are electric, I won’t hold my breath (kind of a pun in there...).

Steve B.

Marine Parkway/ Gil Hodges doesn't state No Bikes, just that you cannot ride the bike and are supposed to walk the bike across. Of course it's like 1 in 500 that actually walk, mostly as they don't feel comfortable riding on a narrow path, I suspect.

dendawg

Same is true of the Henry Hudson Bridge from Inwood to Riverdale

zacster

I never said it forbids bikes, I said it forbids cycling. They all have the "Walk Bikes" signs. It is ALL of the MTA bridges and ONLY the MTA bridges. Almost all of the city DOT bridges allow it, and also the PA bridges to NJ that have paths like the GWB, Bayonne, and Goethals. I don't know about Outerbridge but I doubt it does because it is so old and narrow. I would never think to ride through the tunnels though.

For the Triboro/RFK bridge, isn't there a second path on the opposite side too? Couldn't that be rebuilt and opened for cyclists? The MTA has their heads up where the sun don't shine. The Cross Bay bridge is already plenty wide. Only the Marine Parkway/Gil Hodges bridge is narrow and in the summer there are a lot of walkers and riders crossing it. The sad part is the path is more recent construction than the bridge itself from 1999-2001 but they didn't make it anywhere near wide enough during the rebuild. It used to be on the inside of the structure.

And a factoid about Outerbridge. It is not named for being the outermost crossing in NYC but for the head of the Port Authority at the time, Eugenius Outerbridge.

tcarson

Hope to try it out this spring.

hotbike

This just in:

https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2022/03/...-through-2021/

hotbike

Streets Blog

rumrunn6

wonder if bike lanes will ever get to the tunnels!

Rage

That would be awesome.
The closest I’ve ever come to such was when Bike MS in NYC would let us cross the Holland tunnel on their ride.

Zebra Tempest

I'm excited for the new bike ramp for the GWB. The downside is that bikes will only be allowed on the north side of the bridge with view of the Palisades and the Tappan Zee. It's definitely amazing view, but I would prefer the south view with the skyline.

I wonder if bikess will really stay off the south side.


https://njbwc.org/wp-content/uploads...ian-Access.pdf

hotbike

Bridge photos


Is it open? Is that what you’re saying?


I hope so too. Is the ramp open yet? When did it open, last week?