Eyes on the Street: Inwood’s Newest Bike Lane Forces Greenway Cyclists To Take the Stairs
A new bike lane connecting Inwood to the Hudson River Greenway requires cyclists to cross a highway on-ramp and carry their bikes up and down stairs — because some locals criticized a more direct, stair-free plan that would have repurposed 40 parking spots.
Mayor Mamdani’s Department of Transportation installed the two-way protected bike lane on Riverside Drive earlier this year, more than a year after the local community board rejected an earlier plan to run the bike lane on nearby Dyckman Street instead.
“We can’t willy-nilly — without having some very angry people, probably with great justification — just take away 40 parking spots,” one Manhattan Community Board 12 member said at a Dec. 2, 2024 meeting where the panel declined to support the initial redesign concept.
Originally planned for 2025, during the mayoralty of Eric Adams, DOT’s first proposal would’ve brought cyclists, completely protected and unimpeded by stairs, from Quisqueya Plaza at Dyckman Street and Broadway to a ramp to the greenway a few blocks west.
Instead, this summer, DOT under Mayor Mamdani installed a protected bike lane on nearby Riverside Drive that requires greenway-bound cyclists to cross an entrance ramp to the Henry Hudson Parkway and ride on a narrow shared sidewalk before they traverse a flight of stairs that currently lacks a a bike runnel or mechanism for transporting bikes.
“They just built a new bike lane and it leads nowhere. There are stairs there,” said Lucas B., an Inwood resident who uses the greenway daily for his commute.
Lucas said that he, along with most other cyclists he sees, ride Dyckman Street to get to the greenway in order to avoid the stairs, even though its unprotected bike lanes are often blocked by parked cars.
The stretch of Dyckman that could’ve gotten a protected bike lane is instead, as cyclist Eugene Murphy described it, “essentially a parking lot.”
Complete with angled parking, cars coming onto the roadway from the Henry Hudson Parkway off-ramp, and the lack of a protected bike lane (and in some spots, only sharrows), the roadway is a mess for cyclists.
“I always feel a little bit unsafe at that point,” added Murphy, who lives in Inwood and cycles on the greenway, often with his son in tow.
Streetsblog headed up to Inwood last month to take in the situation.
What’s wrong?
Our visit began at Quisqueya Plaza, where Riverside Drive and Dyckman Street intersect with Broadway and an eight-year-old protected bike lane on Dyckman Street ends. We then went west towards the greenway using the new Riverside Drive bike lane.
The protected lane was freshly painted and signs along the route directed cyclists to the greenway.
But in order to actually get to the off-road path, cyclists have to cross a highway on-ramp to the Henry Hudson Parkway.
Even after cyclists and pedestrians cross the street, they have to share a narrow sidewalk under an overpass to get to the staircase-to-the-greenway:
“This sucks, the steps suck,” said Quentin McCoach, a cyclist on a long ride who carried his bike up the stair case.
The stairs fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of Parks and Recreation, and a DOT spokesperson said the agency plans to explore improvements in coordination with Parks officials. DOT also plans to install more elements for cyclists to move up and down from the greenway in the coming weeks, the rep said.
“We are exploring ways to add improvements that would better connect the greenway to Inwood and will work in coordination with Parks and the community,” agency rep Mona Bruno said in an email.
Dyckman Street’s unprotected bike lanes connect to an easy-to-ride ramp to the greenway, pictured below, but cyclists on the strip contend with block bike lanes and other hazards in the way of the strip’s two unprotected bike lanes on each side in each direction.
Double-parked cars, traffic cones and plastic Jersey barriers blocked both of Dyckman Street’s bike lanes when Streetsblog rode through the area:
And one of the cars double-parked in the south-side bike lane, closer to the entrance to the greenway, was a DOT-operated van:
The unprotected lanes continue up to the intersection of Dyckman Street and Staff Street, where the north-side lane turns into sharrows and the car storage turns into angled parking. The south-side unprotected lane run all the way west to the entrance to the greenway.
Cyclists who spoke to Streetsblog on Dyckman Street said they would’ve liked a protected bike lane — like the one that was shot down by the local community board in 2024.
“It would be nice to just cruise,” said Glenn Miller, a cyclist who uses the trail to travel into the city for events.
Across from the entrance to the greenway, at the end of Dyckman Street, is the notorious off-ramp from the Henry Hudson Parkway, which Streetsblog reported on last year. There, between cars parked in the angled spots and drivers coming off of the off-ramp itself, cyclists trying to get onto the greenway are expected to ride in the middle of the street.
Is it all bad? No!
What’s super great is the Hudson River Greenway.
A part of the Empire Trail system, the greenway is the most heavily used in the country and, according to previous reporting done by Streetsblog Empire State, the entire system bring creates almost $2 billion in economic activity across the state each year.
It’s also gorgeous and provides cyclists with ample space to cruise along the route, whether they’re commuting to and from Manhattan or just going for a joyride.
The bike lane that DOT installed on Riverside Drive still works well, for the most part, despite its terminal flaws. The two-way bike lane is protected by a parking lane and a buffer-zone, and is well-marked with multiple signs directing cyclists to the Hudson River Greenway.
A reader did send the photo below of a UPS truck illegally parked in the middle of the bike lane west of Henshaw Street — because DOT has yet to install Jersey barriers that will keep drivers away from the new bike lane.
Meanwhile, the on-ramp to the Henry Hudson Parkway that cyclists have to cross to get from the Riverside Drive lane to the greenway has also gotten better since Streetsblog last visited in 2025, when there were no crosswalks for pedestrians or cyclists.
Now there’s a freshly painted bike crossing next to the pedestrian crosswalk.
The design appeared to be working when Streetsblog visited the location, with most drivers coming to a full stop before entering the highway.
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