Skip to Content
Streetsblog New York City home
Streetsblog New York City home
Log In
Bike Lanes

Community Board 1 Endorses Tribeca Bike Routes

Sharrows, like these pictured on Second Avenue, will be installed on Sixth Avenue from Walker Street to West Broadway. Photo: DOT

By a vote of 29-4-1, Manhattan Community Board 1 last night endorsed a DOT plan to add bike lanes and sharrows on north-south streets in Tribeca [PDF].

DOT plans a combination of buffered bike lanes and shared lanes on Church Street, West Broadway, Sixth Avenue, and Varick Street. The proposal does not call for any protected bike lanes.

DOT altered a facet of the original plan, presented to the board in July, that would have routed cyclists onto a Varick Street sidewalk, next to Albert Capsouto Park, where the street is paved with cobblestones. Instead, a 30-inch wide granite strip will be installed on the Varick roadbed between Canal and Laight Streets.

Other pedestrian safety measures include new signal timing patterns at Varick and West Broadway and a curb extension where Church Street and Sixth Avenue diverge, says Charles Komanoff, who attended the meeting.

“Those three changes together made the plan much more palatable, and signaled that DOT was not heavy-handed, was not authoritarian, but had fully engaged with the community board,” says Komanoff, a Tribeca resident who lobbied for the DOT plan. “This was said by several [board members] immediately prior to the vote.”

Komanoff credits board chair Catherine McVay Hughes and member Peter Braus, who chairs the board's Tribeca Committee, with moving the plan forward and guiding discussion beyond "bikes vs. drivers vs. walkers."

"CB 1's territory is obviously a key domain for Citi Bike," says Komanoff, "and you could feel it in the air, that there is more bicycle use now by the people who were in the room last night than there was three months ago." He says the board didn't bite when one member proposed to amend the resolution to include language encouraging increased bike law enforcement.

"Members of the board and the community as a whole are moving beyond that tired debate, and they are accepting and to some extent embracing the fact of significant bicycle use in Lower Manhattan."

The bike lanes and sharrows could be complete by the end of this year, and the granite strip on Varick Street is expected to be installed in 2014.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog New York City

Safety First on Third: DOT Numbers Show a Roadway Safer for All Users

Say it again: Bike lanes make roadways safer for all users.

February 19, 2025

Wednesday’s Headlines: Mayor in a Whirlwind Edition

Mayor Adams will learn more about his fate today. Plus other news.

February 19, 2025

Another View: It’s Time for Residential Parking Permits

So people in the livable streets movement think residential parking permits might actually work. Read on...

February 19, 2025

Analysis: Residential Parking Permits Would Be Bad for City Streets

Congestion pricing isn't driving more people to park Uptown — and even if it did, "hunting licenses" for parking spots wouldn't help.

February 18, 2025

Too Much Illegal Parking Prompts Community Board to Reject New Housing

Even after the city greatly reduced parking mandates in the City of Yes initiative, parking is still at the center of many debates about new housing.

February 18, 2025
See all posts