The mayor of New York City has announced plans to close car lanes on the Brooklyn and Queensboro bridges and replace them with bicycle-only lanes.
The new cycling plan for the two East River crossings – called Bridges for the People – was unveiled as part of mayor Bill de Blasio’s final State of the City speech last week.
Under the plan, the city will ban cars from the inner lane of the Manhattan-bound side of the Brooklyn Bridge to build a two-way bike lane.
The existing promenade area at the centre of the bridge, which is elevated above the car lanes, will be used by pedestrians only.
In announcing the plan, de Blasio said that it was time to bring both bridges “into the 21st century and embrace the vision of a future without cars with a radical new plan”.
The announcement comes amid a major surge in biking in New York City. It had nearly 1.6 million bike riders before the pandemic, and cycling has significantly increased with trips at the city’s four East River bridges into Manhattan jumping by 55% in November 2020 compared with the same month in 2019.
During de Blasio’s time in office, New York City transport officials have built more than 120 miles of protected bike lanes as part of the city’s efforts to create 1,375 miles of bike lanes, creating the largest urban network in the USA.
They have also expanded the city’s bike share programme, Citi Bike, and are working on a US$58.4m (£42.6m) bike safety plan following a spike in cycling fatalities on city streets in 2019.
The plan includes installing more protected bike lanes and redesigning intersections to make turns safer for cyclists.
