Brooklyn Bridge Promenade May Get Expansion, City Says

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, NY — New York City's most iconic and overcrowded pedestrian walkway may get an expansion under a new city Department of Transportation proposal released Friday. A city-commissioned study recommended elevating and widening the Brooklyn Bridge Promenade to make more room for the thousands of pedestrians and cyclists that cross it each day.

The plan, for which officials have called for years, would free up space on one of the city's top tourist attractions. The promenade saw pedestrian traffic spike 275 percent and bike traffic rise 104 percent from 2008 to 2015, the DOT says.

But the city won't make a final decision until at least 2019, when the Brooklyn Bridge's cables are due for their first inspection in three decades. The cables need to be checked to ensure they can support a larger platform and the accompanying weight from the even greater number of pedestrians and bikers who would flock to it, according to the study by AECOM, a multinational engineering firm.

"In the meantime and especially after the great changes we have made this year to ease access from both sides of the bridge, pedestrians and cyclists should continue to enjoy the most beautiful mile to walk or bike anywhere in America," Polly Trottenberg, the city transportation commissioner, said in a statement.

The DOT says it's exploring other short-term projects to improve bike access to the bridge and impose new rules on vendors who create bottlenecks on the Manhattan side. But the study rejected the idea of installing a bike lane on the Brooklyn Bridge itself, saying it would create safety and traffic problems and a "poor cyclist experience."

Among them is a plan to convert the bridge's shuttered Park Row exit ramp into a bike ramp that would feed onto the bridge from Downtown Manhattan, which would connect to the Park Row bike lane that was completed earlier this year.

That would help cyclists get around a stairwell that creates a "pinch point" on the promenade, the DOT's study says. That staircase may also get new signage pointing tourists to nearby attractions on the Manhattan side to improve traffic flow, according to the study.

The DOT is also considering restricting vendors from setting up at the end of the promenade and finding other places where they could sell their wares and help tourists get around, the study says. Any such rules would require a public review under city law.

Elected officials praised the DOT for evaluating a desperately needed improvement to what many called a vital piece of the city's tourism and transportation infrastructure.

"To help meet the mayor’s own goal to double daily biking in New York City by 2020, we must create a better bike path across the Brooklyn Bridge, and we encourage the City to take the bold steps required to maximize the space available for daily bike commuters," Paul Steely White, executive director of the public-transit and cycling advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, said in a statement.

Some advocates, though, criticized the study's dismissal of the plan to put a bike lane alongside car traffic on the bridge. The city could easily protect cyclists with concrete barriers and maintain the path with the same equipment it already uses, Doug Gordon, who writes the cycling blog Brooklyn Spoke, said on Twitter.

A so-called congestion pricing scheme imposing tolls on cars crossing the Brooklyn Bridge and other free bridges into Manhattan would also help reduce traffic congestion, Gordon wrote.

"A cycling experience that's safe, direct, and free from conflicts with pedestrians adds up to one pleasant ride, even if you're on the same level as cars," Gordon tweeted.

(Lead image: The city Department of Transportation may elevate and widen the Brooklyn Bridge Promenade, one of New York's most popular and overcrowded pedestrian walkways. Image from NYC Department of Transportation)