Sixth Avenue's Bike Lane Is Now Wider And Longer

MANHATTAN, NY — It's the wheel deal.

With big gold scissors in hand, New York City Department of Transportation officials and local leaders from Manhattan's west side cut the ribbon on the newly widened and lengthened bike lane on Sixth Avenue Wednesday morning.

The new addition — which stretches up Sixth Avenue from Lispenard Street in TriBeCa to West 13th Street in Greenwich Village — completes a four-mile protected bike lane that goes all the way from TriBeCa to Central Park on Sixth Avenue.

“Cyclists can now ride from the Village to Central Park without leaving a protected bike lane,” Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said at the event. “This area of Sixth Avenue includes a new double-wide segment to accommodate traditional and e-bike cyclists.”

The new bike lane replaces a car lane on Sixth Avenue and is between six and 10 feet wide, depending on the location, including things like pedestrian islands to shorten the distance for pedestrians crossing the street and improve visibility.

"Protected bike lanes make our streets safer by encouraging New Yorkers to get out of their cars and choose carbon-free modes of transit," Rep. Jerry Nadler said in a release.

This project to widen and connect a protected bike lane is one of several across Manhattan avenues — including First Avenue in Midtown and the Upper East Side, and Amsterdam Avenue from the Upper West Side along Tenth Avenue down to 14th Street — to improve street safety and provide wider protected bike lanes to accommodate the city’s record growth in cycling.

"This initiative will greatly benefit my constituents from the East to the West Side in our fight for safer streets," Nadler said.

According to the NYC Department of Transportation, protected bike lanes have been instrumental in reducing total deaths and serious injuries by 18.1 percent, and pedestrian deaths and serious injuries by 29.1 percent.

Bike ridership in the city increased for the fourth year in a row, according to city data.

"The wider bike lanes that are part of these projects will help support the historic growth in cycling that we have seen across the city,” Rodriguez said.

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