New Protected Bike Lane Will Link Tribeca to West Village & Beyond

Call it the missing link at Lispenard Street.

After years of anticipation, the New York City Department of Transportation will soon begin work on a protected bike corridor along Church Street and 6th Avenue from Tribeca up to Greenwich Village.

This is a significant project for bike lane advocates, as it will now be possible to ride from lower Manhattan to Central Park largely shielded from car, truck and bus traffic. There will, of course, be dozens of cross street intersections to contend with still but such is the nature of on street bike lanes—even ones that are largely protected.

At present, Church Street—the downtown roots of which begin at Trinity Place—runs one way uptown, with a bollard protected bike lane on the left (west) side that begins at Liberty Street, continues north past the Oculus and World Trade Center plaza, and ends just before Barclay Street.

Here the bike lane changes its character to the familiar green-painted path adjacent the left with car and truck parking to the right of that. Some sections of this route also feature the white colored flexible poles called “bike lane delineators,” which, if they won’t actually stop a car or truck, might at least discourage them.

Bicyclists and other users of the putative bike lane— notably a veritable motor pool of illegal, high-speed scooters and mopeds—are in for a surprise as they approach the three-way junction of 6th Ave. (which took that name at Franklin Street), West Broadway and Lispenard St, however, for here the bike lane presently ends.

Or, rather, it appears to end. In fact, it pauses, causing both confusion and anxiety, as cyclists here were faced with a number of choices.

The first choice is to simply bull through and continue riding with traffic on the left side of 6th Avenue. This is how it was done for years and strong cyclists who feel confined by bike lanes— and are hostile to mopeds, scooters and the like— may choose to do this still. Choice two, is to cross over to the right (east) side of 6th Avenue, where the bike lane picks up again. Choice three: get off 6th Avenue entirely and start heading up the much less trafficked West Broadway. This last course has its advantages though it will only take one as far north as Washington Square Park.

The current DOT project seeks to make these choices less vexing by substantially redesigning the bike lane from Lispenard Street to West 8th Street and then improving the existing bike lane from West 8th and West 14th Street.

Features of the former section will include a protected bike lane on the East Side of 6th Ave. from Lispenard to Houston Street; and the installation of bus boarding islands to reduce conflict between bikes and buses. Car parking here will remain both to the left of the bike lane and on the west curb of 6th Ave.

Complimenting this, the extant protected bike from West 8th Street to West 8th Street to West 14th Street will be widened to allow passing—a DOT nod to speeding ebikes mopeds and scooters being frequent users of the “bike lane”— and pedestrian crossing distances shortened with islands.

For the most part, these are all reasonable plans and should further the DOT’s goal of moving more people through the bike lanes more safely. How grateful—or resentful— any bicyclist should feel about sharing these spaces with someone zipping 25-30 miles per hour is up to the individual rider.

Saddle up!