Changes are finally coming to the Manhattan Bridge's Canal Street terminus.
Unfortunately it was tragedy that forced the city's hand to act — and the changes fall short of the full-scale Canal Street revamp the city has teased for three years and counting.
The Department of Transportation on Thursday announced, through amNewYork, that it would put concrete barriers around the pedestrian space where an allegedly intoxicated driver going at 109 mph killed a cyclist and a pedestrian on July 19. DOT will also reduce the width of two travel lanes on the bridge.
Less immediately, DOT will propose reducing the speed limit on the Manhattan Bridge approaching the intersection from 35 to 20 mph, officials said. That requires a 60-day public comment period, DOT said, but it's long overdue — the bridge currently functions like a Mario Kart-style speed boost, revving drivers up to high speeds right as they approach busy, pedestrian-dense Canal Street. And the city wants to "explore" installing a warning sign to tell drivers to slow down. (Explore?)
DOT, which expanded pedestrian space at the foot of the bridge in 2016, conducted outreach for a "Canal St Visioning Project" back in 2022, only to announce plans for another study the following year. Congestion pricing launched and cut traffic on the corridor and the Adams administration continued to dither. Now DOT says it is "fast-tracking community engagement on a full redesign of the Canal Street corridor to start several months ahead of schedule" — specifically, this month as opposed to the fall.
So a redesign is finally happening after another round of community input. It's about time.
Gothamist also covered the changes coming.
In other news:
- "No Way to Enforce It": The Wall Street Journal dove into the mayor's 15-mph e-bike speed limit.
- A hit-and-run driver killed a pedestrian in the Bronx on Wednesday night. (Gothamist)
- Police finally arrested the driver in another Bronx hit-and-run ... from 2022. (Daily News)
- Daylighting can help fight flooding (City Limits)
- The Times wants to hear New York City drivers' parking stories ... hopefully they call Gersh Kuntzman like the New Yorker did for a similar piece.
- Mark Levine wants to expand NYC Ferry to serve the Hudson River waterfront. (amNY)
- Andrew Cuomo's "free transit plan" is cheaper ... and less ambitious than Zohran Mamdani's. (Gothamist, Politics NY)
- On hand for Thursday's 34th Street busway "victory lap": The Post, CBS and (naturally) us.
