East Side, West Side: Mamdani’s DOT Will Transform 72nd Street With Protected Bike Lane, Bus Improvements

There’s a new mayor in town.

The Department of Transformation on Tuesday unveiled bold new bus and bike improvements for West 72nd Street as merchants crowded a community board meeting to make the same debunked complaints that transit, bike and safety improvements will hurt their bottom lines — complaints that, under a new mayor, will not block the project.

The safety improvements for West 72nd Street will convert four lanes of traffic into two, with a center turning bay, adding a two-way protected bike lane on the north side of the street. That configuration will model the department’s plan for East 72nd Street, making the car-dominated street a true multi-modal cross-town connector that will allow cyclists to seamlessly and safely ride all the way across town, through Central Park and Riverside Park to the Hudson River Greenway, thanks to a new connection.

Bus riders will get eight-foot-wide raised boarding islands as well as crosswalks and signs alerting cyclists to the fact that bus riders will be crossing the lane. Ten parking spots will be repurposed on the entire 72nd Street corridor.

After hearing concerns from business owners, DOT, in a departure from its Adams-era capitulation to business interests at the expense of safety, stood by the project.

“[With] a street redesign like this, we’re able to calm the traffic that’s on the roadway, we’re able to install trees where we can and make the roadway a more hospitable place to be, generally do just have a positive increase on foot traffic,” said Patrick Kennedy of the DOT’s bike unit.

The project will also change Riverside Boulevard from West 72nd to West 68th in order to facilitate seamless entrance to the Hudson River Greenway. Twenty-seven parking spaces will be taken off the east side of the block.

The agency’s pushback against the bikelash came hours after DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn signaled that he was no fan of many business owners’ belief that customers need a lot of parking. As a guest on DOT’s in-house podcast released on Tuesday before the meeting, Flynn called the desire for parking the “biggest misconceptions” about the city’s transportation system.

“In most parts of New York, I’d say that’s not the case, and there’s been a lot of research out there that proves that,” he said on the “Curb Enthusiasm” podcast. “But you even sometimes see things like, the business owners are the one parking out front and feeding the meter.”

The committee voted to approve the proposal 7 to 2, but DOT indicated it would go ahead regardless of how the full board votes on May 1. Implementation could start this summer.

The DOT presentation was matter-of-fact, with Colleen Chattergoon, a senior borough planner, opening the evening by saying the agency is “going to” do the project because it is “going to make the street much safer for all users of the roadway.”

When some in the crowd pushed back, Chattergoon said that the department welcomes feedback, but stood by the project.

Currently, West 72nd Street is a hot spot for prolonged double-parking, which turns the four lane road into a de-facto two lane road and causes harrowing situations for cyclists brave enough to ride on the corridor.

On streets with protected bike lanes there is a 39-percent decrease in crashes that cause death and serious injury for seniors, and that drop is 24 percent for non-senior adults, according to DOT.

The administration is hoping that the reduction of travel lanes from two in each direction to one will keep traffic flowing and reduce double parking, since there will be no second lane to double park in. Additionally, the DOT said it will be looking into adding more loading zones and changing the parking regulations in the area to encourage turnover, like adding shorter meter times. This comes just days after Mamdani put an emphasis on the curb by announcing a new Office of Curb Management.

The plan is a long-time coming. The board sent a recommendation to DOT in 2020 asking for a proposal for a protected bike lane and street redesign on West 72nd, and on the East Side, CB8 passed resolutions for protected east/west connections in 2019 and 2022. The need for crosstown bike routes was also identified in the 2024 Central Park Conservancy study which informed the recent redesigns of the Central Park Drive.

A group of 72nd Street business owners showed up to the meeting to express their disapproval of the project and the common fear that a bike lane, or any type of restriction of car access, will “kill” the area’s local businesses. One such business owner, Lester Wasserman, the owner of Tip Top Shoes, got especially heated, often calling out over the board’s deliberations and getting into an argument with another member of the public.

Wasserman and his fellow business owner attendees also said that they felt sidelined by the project and the community board review process in general. At the height of Wasserman’s anger with the way the meeting went, Council Member Gale Brewer showed up herself.

She told Streetsblog that she does not yet have a position on the project and was seen talking with the business owners who were upset about the proposal, saying she was “worried” about them. Brewer famously opposed a dedicated bus lane on W. 96th Street in 2024.

Correction: This story mistakenly omitted a part of the DOT Commissioner‘s comments about metered parking. We’ve updated the quote to provide full context.