Pols Want A Bike Lane From Bklyn Bridge To West Side Greenway — Just Not on Chambers Street Where Cyclists Want It
Cyclists are voting with their feet, but the politicians are sitting on their hands.
A pair of Manhattan elected officials want a bike lane between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Hudson River Greenway — but not on Chambers Street, the crosstown street that cyclists are actually using.
Chambers is the most-popular crosstown cycling route in the area, according to data from fitness app Strava, because it provides the only direct connection from the Brooklyn Bridge’s popular bike lane to the greenway, the continent’s most-used bike path.
Still, Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, Council Member Chris Marte (D-Chinatown) and Manhattan Community Board 1 Chair Tammy Meltzer asked the Mamdani administration not to give those cyclists a protected bike lane, and instead attempt to direct them elsewhere.
“Despite the surge in ridership, cyclists coming to or from the Brooklyn Bridge still have no continuous, protected, east-west route to the Hudson River Greenway, the busiest greenway in the country,” the trio wrote in a letter to be released on Friday calling for a safe crosstown cycling route in the area..
The Manhattanites called Chambers “unsuitable” because of the alleged narrowness of “the available roadbed” and the fact that Chambers is an “existing truck route.”
“Chambers Street is a busy, heavily traveled truck corridor with a high number of loading zones,” said Hoylman-Sigal spokesman Liam Horan. “Borough President Hoylman-Sigal’s goal is to provide a seamless, safe connection from the Brooklyn Bridge to the West Side Greenway, and unfortunately Chambers Street does not allow sufficient space for a two-way, protected bike lane. The BP is eager to work with Community Board 1 and DOT to find alternate routes that will ultimately accommodate a two-way protected bike lane for all Manhattanites to enjoy.”
The number of daily bike trips over the Brooklyn Bridge has grown 112 percent — from 2,652 cyclists per day to 5,625 cyclists per day — since former Mayor Bill de Blasio swapped a lane of car traffic on the bridge for a two-way bike lane in 2021. But people biking to or from the west side of Lower Manhattan lack a safe route to do so without riding in regular motor vehicle traffic.
Finding a route that will work may be difficult if Chamber Street is off the table, however. Judging from the Strava heatmap, cyclists have made their opinion known:
The concentration of cyclists makes sense: Chambers Street is the only two-way street south of Canal Street that runs from the area around the Brooklyn Bridge to the Hudson River Greenway without getting cut off by perpendicular streets.
In fact, in a 2022 letter to DOT asking for a greenway-bridge bike connection, CB1 ruled out ruled out other streets in the area for the bike lane for the following reasons:
- Reade Street ends at Greenwich Street.
- Worth Street leads to a dead end at Hudson Street.
- Murray and Warren streets connect to the greenway, but are most directly accessible through City Hall Park, which could lead to conflicts with pedestrians.
Cyclists taking Chambers Street do face danger, however, as the street’s current design forces them to share space with car, truck and bus traffic. Since September 2021, 19 cyclists have been injured on Chambers Street between the greenway and the bridge in 129 reported crashes.
Chambers Street doesn’t need to be the only answer, said Jon Orcutt, a former DOT planner under mayors Bloomberg and de Blasio. But Orcutt said Hoylman, Marte and CB1 should let the planners weigh all the options, rather than ruling out Chambers before negotiations even begin.
“It’s a great goal,” he said of the officials’ call for a safe route. “Let DOT figure it out though.”
This is as good a time as ever to add a safer connection to the Brooklyn Bridge, since the bike lane approaching it is in line for an upgrade this month.
On Thursday night, DOT began work on a new cycling-only entrance to the bridge on the Centre Street/Park Row approach that will trade a turning bay for cars for a two-way bike lane that separates bike and pedestrian traffic.
Mayor Mamdani announced the plan in March, and it’s expected to be finished in June in time for tourists to innundate the city for the World Cup.
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