Eight years after uptown advocates first called for a bike connection across Inwood, linking greenways along the Hudson River and the Harlem River, DOT has a bike lane plan for Dyckman Street.
Between Broadway and Nagle Avenue, the redesign would convert the current four-lane design into DOT's standard road diet template -- a general traffic lane and a five-foot-wide un-protected bike lane in each direction, plus a painted median and center turn lanes. Between Nagle Avenue and Tenth Avenue, where there are already buffered bike lanes, the project would add a nine-foot two-way protected bike lane with a three-foot buffer along the north side of Harlem River Park.
While the plan falls short of the fully-protected connection advocates wanted, it's a big improvement on a street that currently lacks space for cycling.
Washington Heights resident Jonathan Rabinowitz, who has pushed for a bikeable Dyckman Street for several years, said the project will provide a useful link to other recent bike network improvements in the neighborhood. "For someone who is going typically [north-south] like myself, even this minimal on-street bike lane approach is a benefit because it creates a space on those two blocks to connect Fort George Hill with Sherman Avenue," he said.
In addition to the road diet and bike lanes, the project includes new median islands at Vermilyea and Post Avenues and a large painted curb extension and new crosswalk at the intersection with Tenth Avenue.
On June 6, DOT presented the Dyckman Street project to the Manhattan Community Board 12 transportation committee [PDF]. Instead of supporting the plan, the committee asked DOT to hold a workshop on the proposal and the overall transportation needs of the area. But neighborhood residents have already waited eight years for safer cycling on Dyckman.
The Dyckman project has gone through an interminable public process. In 2008, after months of local advocacy, CB 12 passed a resolution requesting a DOT feasibility study of a Dyckman protected bike lane. Then, in 2011 and again in 2012, the board requested bike lane upgrades. But now that a DOT plan has finally materialized, the committee wants to delay implementation with more meetings.
Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez commended the project in a statement to Streetsblog today. "Dyckman Street is a key east-west corridor connecting the Hudson River Greenway to bike paths on the Harlem River," he said. "Uptown's growing cycling community stands to benefit tremendously from this plan."
The CB 12 resolution calling for DOT to hold a workshop on the project will get a vote from the full board when it meets on June 28. That meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Campbell Sports Complex's Richard M. Ruzika Theater, located at 505 West 218th Street.
