The city plans to expand Third Avenue's "complete street" design south from the Queensboro Bridge this year, replacing two car lanes with a protected bike path and a bus lane, according to the Department of Transportation.
The proposal [PDF] will reduce the roadway from six or seven lanes for the movement and storage of cars to three moving lanes, two parking lanes, plus a bus lane and a bike lane from E. 59th Street down to E. 24th Street this year, following another extension uptown to E. 128th Street officials announced last year.
That means that all told, the safety-boosting layout will stretch for 5.2 miles of the East Side corridor, creating a wide and continuous protected northbound path for cyclists, while juicing bus speeds and calming traffic from Kips Bay to East Harlem later this year.
“[It] is really about reallocating that space on the roadway to better match and align with the number of users on the road," DOT Project Manager Esteban Doyle told the Community Board 6 Transportation Committee last week.
The plan
The agency plans to narrow the road down from five to three car moving lanes and install a parking protected bike lane along the western curb and a bus lane across the street.
There is currently a bus lane between E. 36th and E. 55th streets, but it disappears between E. 55th and E. 59th streets to give drivers a turning lane.
The bicycle path will be between nine and 10 feet wide, to allow faster-moving riders on e-bikes to safely pass.
That will add more space for cyclists heading uptown, who currently have to squeeze into the busy paths on nearby.
"There’s a protected bike lane north bound on First Avenue, but it’s at capacity," said Rosy Doud, a project manager with DOT's bicycle unit.
On the first two southern blocks, between E. 24th and E. 26th, DOT will also add a painted sidewalk extension, which the agency dubs super sidewalks, to accommodate the heavy local pedestrian volume. (North of E. 23rd Street, two-way Third Avenue becomes one-way northbound.)
The city will also add concrete and painted pedestrian islands, and clear corners of car storage to increase visibility, a design known as daylighting.
A good start
DOT first rolled out the overhaul of Third between E. 59th to E. 96th streets in 2023, which quickly yielded improvements for street safety and sped up commutes for the 64,000 daily bus riders on the corridor.
Advocates liked the agency's approach for the Midtown stretch when officials first unveiled it in 2022, but urged Transportation Department leaders to think bigger for the so-called complete street. A visualization by Curbed from 2021 showed how Third Avenue could completely transform if DOT paired the vehicle lanes down to two and repurposed the rest of the public realm for bikes, buses and pedestrians.
Nevertheless, DOT's design did still increase bus speeds by 14 percent during afternoon peak hour, and pedestrian injuries dropped a whopping 50 percent after the agency installed the design on the first 37 blocks in Midtown.
The southern section is in desperate need of upgrades too, officials told the CB 6 panel, given that it is in the top 10 percent of most people killed or seriously injured in crashes in the entire borough.
Over the last five full years, 449 people have been injured, including 131 pedestrians and 94 cyclists. In 2019, a trucker fatally struck 27-year-old middle school teacher Sarah Foster as she was crossing at E. 37th Street just steps from her Murray Hill home.
The roadway is designed for cars over street safety. From 24th Street to 36th Street, 100 percent of its 70-foot width is dedicated to automobile movement or storage. North of 36th Street, the bus lane means that 82 percent of the roadway is devoted to private car owners. This allocation of space comes even though people in cars comprise just 45 percent of people moving on the avenue, according to DOT.
Positive feedback
Members of the community board and public attendees praised the city's plans, and again pushed officials to go even further.
"This is great, I’ve been wanting this for a while, you know, because I’ve been traveling on Third Avenue a lot," said one public commenter, who gave his name as Chris. "Is there any plans to do the lower part of Third Avenue? I mean, I would say, why not do the whole thing, have everything kind of uniform."
Another local called into the hybrid meeting to say the change would make her feel safer, especially as someone who bikes at slower speeds.
"I am just a regular everyday middle-aged 50-plus woman who likes to use the bike lane and wants to feel safe when I bike very slowly in the bike lane," said Dana. "We definitely need a northbound bike lane on Third Avenue. Our only options now are the First Avenue [bike lane], and no one’s even mentioning Sixth Avenue, which is very overcrowded as well."
CB 6's Transportation committee unanimously voted to back the revamp, and DOT plans to install the changes this summer or fall. The agency will also install the northern extension to 128th Street sometime this year.
