Community Board 11 Approves East Harlem Protected Bike Lanes

The full board of Community Board 11 voted to approve protected bike lanes on First and Second Avenues last night. The news was first reported by Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson over Twitter this morning.

When complete, the bike lanes and pedestrian refuge islands will run from 96th Street to 125th Street on both avenues. Construction will start on Second Avenue, where there is currently no bike infrastructure, and will not cover Second Avenue south of 100th Street until Second Avenue Subway construction is complete.

CB 11’s transportation committee approved the plans by a vote of 5-1-2 earlier this month. East Harlem residents and elected officials had been promised the lanes last year, but when revised plans had construction limited to below 34th Street, they fought hard to get the lanes built in their neighborhood.

Wolfson thanked City Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito for her support of the lanes. “Yeah!” she responded. “Protected bike lanes benefit all in our community.”

We’ll update this post with more information on last night’s vote as it becomes available.

  • The sole remaining piece of this 12+-mile bikeway to be voted on in the community board process is the piece from 59th to 96th Streets.  Please help ensure a favorable vote at the the Community Board 8 meeting this evening at 6:30.  If you’d like to speak for 2 minutes, please do so by registering to speak by 6:45.

    The meeting is at Sloan-Kettering, 430 East 67th Street (First-York), in the auditorium.

  • The sole remaining piece of this 12+-mile bikeway to be voted on in the community board process is the piece from 59th to 96th Streets.  Please help ensure a favorable vote at the the Community Board 8 meeting this evening at 6:30.  If you’d like to speak for 2 minutes, please do so by registering to speak by 6:45.

    The meeting is at Sloan-Kettering, 430 East 67th Street (First-York), in the auditorium.

  • J

    Thanks for reporting this. It is always good to have a readily available public record of these votes.

  • Daphna

    Community Board 11 approved protected bike lanes on 1st and 2nd Avenues from 96th to 125th Streets.  However, the only immediate section that the DOT will install is from 100th – 125th Street on 2nd Avenue.  The vote was 35 in favor, 0 opposed, 3 abstentions.

  • EastHarlemAdvocate

    It’s obvious that none of you live near 1st or 2nd avenue in East Harlem.  If you did, then you wouldn’t even argue with the fact that we suffer from terrible air quality due to highly congested streets, 2nd ave subway construction, FDR drive tire rubber particles in the air and commercial diesel trucks in droves storming up first avenue.  East Harlem is recognized to have the highest Asthma rate in the nation!!!  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to prove that removing a traffic lane on 2nd avenue will create more traffic in an already congested avenue.  Anything that will exacerbate an already painful health crisis should be voided and not even considered unless you are a tyrant and forcing this “eminent domain” style of bike lane implementation. But let me get this right, you much rather provide safer biking conditions for a few bikers while affecting the lives of over 150,000 people that live in East Harlem!?!?!?  How the hell does this make any sense?
    Why don’t you go visit the Asthma Center in East Harlem and tell them that next week they should start getting used to breathing through a straw!  You will KILL US WITH THIS STUPID IDEA!!!  Ride your bike up the esplanade, or through Central Park or up Madison Avenue that doesn’t have commercial traffic but you dont need to REMOVE TRAFFIC LANES to create bike lanes.

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