Skip to Content
Streetsblog New York City home
Streetsblog New York City home
Log In
Bicycling

Eyes on the Street: Whole Foods Takes the Whole Bike Lane (and Sidewalk)

Who needs newly-built loading docks when you can take over the sidewalk and the bike lane? Photo: Brooklyn Spoke/Twitter
Whole Foods commandeers Third Avenue. Photo: Brooklyn Spoke/Twitter
Who needs newly-built loading docks when you can take over the sidewalk and the bike lane? Photo: Brooklyn Spoke/Twitter

The huge surface parking lot and inward-facing, suburban-style design were bad enough. Now the Gowanus Whole Foods Market is taking over the Third Avenue bike lane and sidewalk as a private loading zone.

Doug Gordon of Brooklyn Spoke snapped a photo of a Whole Foods forklift and piles of pallets using the Third Avenue buffered bike lane and sidewalk as a private loading zone earlier this week. One would expect a newly-built food market to be well-integrated with existing infrastructure, but since Whole Foods opened late last year, its loading activities have overflowed onto the street and sidewalk along Third Avenue.

"You can't blame the drivers or the people manning the loading dock for this situation," Gordon writes. "The design forces them to do this just to keep the store stocked."

In its 2011 traffic study [PDF], Whole Foods said only that "truck loading docks would be located along Third Avenue" and that all truck loading activity would occur between midnight and 5 p.m. There was no mention of the amount of space needed or required to accommodate deliveries or whether that space would take over the sidewalk and street.

Community Board 6 voted in support of the project in June 2011. According to the board's minutes, the interaction of loading zones with Third Avenue only came up as a concern briefly during the land use committee hearing on the proposal. As a condition for its approval, the board requested that Whole Foods conduct a traffic study one year after opening.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog New York City

Monday’s Headlines: ‘We Speak English in America’ Edition

Read that talk bubble. That's really what the cop said to a man under arrest. Plus other news from a busy weekend.

May 12, 2025

Cyclist Launches Class Action Suit For Bogus NYPD Red Light Tickets

The NYPD keeps ignoring a law that allows cyclists to pass through a red light on the "Walk" sign. Now, someone is making a federal case about it.

May 12, 2025

Car Harms Monday: ‘Car Brain’ is the Demon Spawn of Car Dependency

Our policies, our budgets and our cultural narratives assume everyone can and does drive. That's car brain.

May 12, 2025

Zohran Mamdani Wants to Take a Free Bus … Straight to Gracie Mansion

So let's talk about the candidate's fare-free bus policy.

May 12, 2025

NYPD’s Push To Criminalize Cycling Spells Trouble For Immigrant Workers

Safety for the community? Great. But aren't delivery workers part of the community, too?

May 9, 2025
See all posts