Bicycling

Eyes on the Street: Making Room for the Chrystie Street Protected Bike Lane

Before DOT can stripe a two-way protected bike lane on Chrystie Street, it has to relocate three pedestrian islands to make room for the bikeway. Work on those islands -- at Canal, Broome, and Delancey streets -- appears to be mostly complete.

By David Meyer

4:18 PM EDT on October 10, 2016

chrystie_island — DOT moved this concrete pedestrian island a few feet over to make room for a two-way protected bike lane along the east side of Chrystie Street. Photo: David Meyer

Before DOT can stripe a two-way protected bike lane on Chrystie Street, it has to relocate three pedestrian islands to make room for the bikeway. Work on those islands — at Canal, Broome, and Delancey streets — appears to be mostly complete.

The protected bike lane along the eastern curb of Chrystie will replace today’s un-protected painted lanes, which leave cyclists to mix it up with heavy traffic, including lots of trucks and buses [PDF]. It should significantly improve conditions on Chrystie, which thousands of people use to bike to and from the Manhattan Bridge each day.

The existing pedestrian islands along the route have to be shifted over about five feet to accommodate the two-way bikeway.

New room for pedestrians at Broome Street. Photo: David Meyer — Another relocated pedestrian island at Broome Street. Photo: David Meyer

The project also includes new concrete pedestrian islands at East 2nd Street, Rivington Street, and Stanton Street, which have yet to be built. The bikeway could be painted before construction of those islands begins, which is the typical order of work on protected bike lane projects.

The relocated concrete makes room for a two-way protected bike lane where there are currently one-way sharrows (left image). Image: DOT — The relocated concrete island at Canal Street will make room for the new two-way protected bike lane on Chrystie. Image: DOT

David Meyer

David was Streetsblog's do-it-all New York City beat reporter from 2015 to 2019. He returned as an editor in 2023 after a three-year stint at the New York Post.

Bicycling | Eyes on the Street | Lower East Side | Protected Bike Lanes

Streetsblog has migrated to a new comment system. New commenters can register directly in the comments section of any article. Returning commenters: your previous comments and display name have been preserved, but you'll need to reclaim your account by clicking "Forgot your password?" on the sign-in form, entering your email, and following the verification link to set a new password — this is required because passwords could not be carried over during the migration. For questions, contact tips@streetsblog.org.