Safer Street Designs, Wider Bike Lanes Across Manhattan Avenues

A new, wider-bike lane segment installed in 2024 along Manhattan’s Sixth Avenue. Credit: NYC DOT

Work Culminates With a Ribbon Cutting on Sixth Avenue in Tribeca and Greenwich Village

In Addition to Safety Improvements, New, Wider Bike Lanes Along Five Manhattan Avenues Support the Historic Growth in Cycling and Safe, Legal E-Mobility Options

The ribbon on Greenwich Village Manhattan’s recently completed redesign along the Avenue of the Americas was cut today. The project is one of several across Manhattan avenues to improve street safety and provide wider protected bike lanes to accommodate the record growth in cycling across the city. In addition to Sixth Avenue, NYC DOT has also completed projects on First, Second, Seventh, and Tenth Avenues. 

In addition to the projects, safety benefits, new wider bike lanes, part of the Charge Safe, Ride Safe action plan, better accommodate cyclists and stand-up scooter riders traveling at different speeds, while also creating a more comfortable riding experience for people of all abilities. The designs also include intersection redesigns to enhance safety for pedestrians and travelers inside vehicles by shortening the distance it takes pedestrians to cross the street, improving visibility, and naturally slowing turning vehicles to safer speeds.

In 2024, a record high 28,000 cyclists entered Manhattan each day over the city’s East River bridges. The new bike lanes vary in width, from six to 10 feet, depending on the location. Each project was included in Connecting to the Core to make it easier to travel around Manhattan’s Central Business District without a vehicle.

Protected bike lanes improve safety for everyone on the street. Protected bike lanes reduce total deaths and serious injuries by 18.1 percent, and pedestrian deaths and serious injuries by 29.1 percent. The safety benefits for senior-aged pedestrians are even greater, with a reduction in senior pedestrian injuries and deaths by 39 percent. Bike lanes deliver these universal safety improvements because they reduce the time it takes pedestrians to cross vehicle traffic, help curb illegal speeding, and naturally slow turns through intersection designs that also create safer angles for turning vehicles. 

The new and improved Manhattan lanes include:

• First Avenue, where NYC DOT completed a new ‘express’ protected bike lane through the avenue’s tunnel between East 40th Street to East 49th Street. Protected by jersey barriers, the new lanes make permanent changes the agency had instituted temporarily during the annual September United Nations General Assembly, when access to First Avenue above-ground is very limited. The agency also widened the existing lane from East 61st to 72nd streets on the Upper East Side, with upgraded intersection design to better protect cyclists from turning drivers.
• Second Avenue, where bike lanes were widened between East 59th and 30th streets and from 14th Street to Houston Street. Work will continue on the corridor this year. The agency also upgraded bus lanes the entire length from East 59th to Houston streets. The redesign included new pedestrian islands and a widened concrete sidewalk between East 33rd and 30th streets. Work will continue on this corridor next year.
• Sixth Avenue: In late 2024, NYC DOT closed the last remaining gap in the Sixth Avenue protected bike lane with a new wider lane (eight to 10 feet) from Lispenard Street in Tribeca to West 13th Street in the Village. The project brings much-needed safety benefits for everyone along one of the most dangerous corridors in Manhattan. There were 18 traffic deaths and serious injuries recorded between 2019 and 2023, this section of Sixth Avenue is one of NYC DOT’s Vision Zero Priority Corridors for safety improvements. NYC DOT is planning to widen existing portions of Sixth Avenue in 2025.
• Seventh Avenue: NYC DOT filled one of the last remaining gaps in the Seventh Avenue protected bike lane with a new, wide lane installed between West 42nd Street and 34th streets. 
• Tenth Avenue: Last year, DOT lengthened the Amsterdam Avenue protected lane on the Upper West Side south along 10th Avenue to West 38th Street in Hell’s Kitchen. In 2024, NYC DOT returned to further extend the protected lane southward to West 14th Street. The eight-foot-wide lane now creates a continuous, protected bike route from Chelsea to Morningside Heights, an in 2024 received 11 pedestrian islands and one median extension.