Crescent Street Bike Lane Gets Community Board Approval

ASTORIA, QUEENS — Queens Community Board 1 on Tuesday unanimously approved plans for a permanent, two-way protected bike lane along Crescent Street.

The bike lane will run between the Queensboro Bridge and Hoyt Avenue North.

City transportation officials started work last month on the southern portion of the bike lane, part of a larger plan to help New Yorkers with social distancing by creating more public space, but the community board's vote paves the way for the infrastructure to stick around permanently.

Juan Restrepo, a Queens organizer with the nonprofit advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, called the bike lane a "no brainer."

He and other safe streets advocates have been pushing for a protected bike path along Crescent Street for years.

"It's a true commuter route that gets people to local institutions, local restaurants or into Manhattan," Restrepo said in a phone interview.

Protected bike paths are associated with a 15-percent drop in crashes that cause injuries, according to a Department of Transportation analysis of police data from 2007 to 2017.

More than 300 people have gotten injured in crashes on Crescent Street since August 2011, when the tool NYC Crash Mapper started mapping city crash data.

Crescent Street is likely only the beginning: The Department of Transportation started work earlier this year on an improved biking network in Astoria.

Restrepo and his fellow organizers are continuing to push for east-to-west protected bike lanes in the neighborhood and new connections beyond Astoria.

"You ideally want a protected lane that leads to a protected lane," he said. "We need to build out a much stronger network throughout Queens, not just Astoria."