DOT Reveals Plan to Fill Infamous Bike Lane Gap on Ashland Place

Crashland no more.

The Department of Transportation under Mayor Mamdani is advancing plans to plug a notorious hole left by his predecessor in Brooklyn’s protected bike lane network.

DOT plans to install a two-way protected bike lane on the north side of Ashland Place between Lafayette Avenue and Hanson Place, and turn Hanson Place between Ashland Place and St. Felix Street into a “shared street” with greatly expanded pedestrian space and a westbound bike lane, according to a redesign plan set to be presented to the transportation committee of Brooklyn Community Board 2 on Thursday evening.

To make room for the bike lane, DOT will convert Ashland Place between Lafayette and Hanson to a one-way northbound street for motor vehicles, and convert Hanson Place between St. Felix Street and Ashland Place into a one-way westbound street for motor vehicles.

In addition to filling in the protected bike lane gap on Ashland Place, the city will install protected bike lanes in two other segments: on the wide sidewalk on the southern side of Lafayette Avenue between Ashland Place and Flatbush Avenue, and next to the southern sidewalk between Flatbush and Third Avenue. This design will provide a direct connection to the existing bike lane on Schermerhorn Street.

There is a clear and obvious need for filling the gap and tweaking Hanson Place. On the unprotected piece of Ashland Place, cyclists are still forced to compete for space with trucks and cars in two-way traffic.

Since September 2023, when DOT installed the rest of the protected bike lane, the southern stub of Ashland Place recorded 29 crashes that injured five cyclists and two pedestrians. Despite this, the protected northern sections of Ashland Place and Navy Street continue to see huge demand, with 1,200 daily cyclists as of June 2024. And on Hanson Place, the Citi Bike station in front of the Atlantic terminal entrance is one of the busiest in the city, with 43,000 daily trips starting there.

But the project also represents a heartwarming conclusion to one of former mayor Eric Adams’ more transparent attempts to gain favor with wealthy interests by interfering with street safety projects. Activists began referring to Ashland Place as “Crashland,” to capture how the Adams administration appeared to tailor the street in Downtown Brooklyn to place cyclists in harm’s way.

“We’re working quickly to make ‘Crashland ’ a distant memory with a redesign that delivers long-overdue cycling connections by closing gaps in the Brooklyn Bike Network on Ashland Place and Lafyette Avenue,” said DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn in a statement. “On Hanson Place, a new shared street will create a gateway to Atlantic Terminal with expanded pedestrian space in the heart of Downtown Brooklyn. Completing the Ashland Place redesign will bring upgrades to one city-block that will enhance safety and connectivity for pedestrians and cyclists all across Brooklyn.”

DOT first proposed a protected bike lane on Ashland Place and Navy Street — which function as the same, contiguous street — in June 2022, with the idea of linking the protected bike lane on Fourth Avenue to the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges and the greenway on Flushing Avenue and Kent Avenue.

By 2023, however, the project had fallen aground. Both the Brooklyn Academy of Music and real-estate developer Two Trees flexed their muscle to slow things down on the portion of the bike lane between Hanson Place and Lafayette Avenue. That section abuts the western facade of two BAM buildings and the eastern facade of Two Trees’ triangular rental building, 300 Ashland Place — including the entrance to the building’s valet parking garage.

BAM objected out in the open, leading DOT to include a loading zone for the venue, so that trucks could load and unload before and after performances. By contrast, Two Trees waged an opposition campaign entirely behind the scenes, enlisting Adams’s since-indicted closest adviser, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, to totally eliminate the protected bike lane on that one-block stretch.

After Adams sided with Two Trees, DOT installed a facially absurd design that allowed two-way motor vehicle traffic on the southernmost end of Ashland Place to feed into one-way northbound traffic once a vehicle crossed Lafayette. For cyclists, the two-way protected bike lane terminated at Lafayette, and crossing the block required someone to turn across the northbound traffic and then continue south.

Activists spent two years pushing Adams to fix his own mess, but the former mayor refused to budge. Mayor Mamdani later announced his intent to revive and complete a significant number of street projects that Adams delayed or outright killed — including the final piece of Ashland Place.