Tomorrow night, officials from the city’s Department of Transportation will brief Community Board 3 on a plan to add new bike lanes connecting to the Williamsburg Bridge. In short, bike-dedicated corridors would be created on Suffolk, Stanton and Rivington Streets. Here’s the proposal, in DOT speak:
Recent DOT projects on Grand and Clinton Streets have improved bicycle access to the Williamsburg Bridge from the south, but it remains difficult to access the bridge from the north because of the absence of an east-west cycling route north of the Williamsburg Bridge entrance on Delancey Street. In our continued effort to improve access, circulation, and safety to and from the bridge entrances, a buffered bicycle path was installed in the fall of 2009 for one block in the median of Delancey Street between Suffolk Street and the bridge entrance. The proposed bicycle lane on Suffolk Street will now complete that important connection to the bridge, with improved circulation and connections to existing bicycle facilities created by the proposed east-west bicycle lanes on Rivington and Stanton Streets. The project proposal updates parking regulations and installs a 6-foot wide green-painted curbside bicycle lane providing a parallel cycling route to the heavily-trafficked Delancey Street. This project adds 1.4 lane miles to the bicycle network and completes a safe, convenient cycling route connecting the Williamsburg Bridge and the Hudson River Greenway.
For many years, cycling advocates have been lobbying for a more extensive network of bike lanes around the bridge. Their voices grew louder in January when a bicyclist was killed on Delancey Street when a school bus back up and struck her.
The meeting of CB3’s transportation committee takes place tomorrow at 630pm at University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street (at Rivington).
