Express Bike Lane for First Ave. Tunnel Near U.N. Close to Completion
The accommodation is made for bikers every year during the U.N. General Assembly, when the aboveground road is shut. Now, the DOT anticipates that a permanent eight-foot-wide bike lane will be completed soon. Northbound cars will lose one of two lanes.
| 21 Sep 2024 | 04:30
The approach to the soon-to-be permanent 1st Ave. Tunnel bike lane. For years, it’s been instituted as a temporary measure during the U.N. General Assembly, but it will be solidified by popular demand. (
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Jersey barriers, which can also be made of concrete or plastic, will be used to separate express lane bikers from the tunnel’s northbound vehicular traffic. The lane will allow riders to bypass the United Nations. (
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An express bike lane that will allow riders to zip through Midtown Manhattan’s First Avenue Tunnel–which extends from E. 40th St. and E. 49th St, near the United Nations–will soon be completed.
The new express bike route will run throughout the northbound length of the tunnel, and will remove one of two car lanes, the DOT clarified. A bike lane is already temporarily instituted on a temporary basis every fall, due to aboveground road shutdowns surrounding the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA).
The transportation agency, which initially announced the initiative this spring, has indicated that it will be hopefully be finishing the lane in the coming days. The idea was initially paired with a scheduled road repaving, and the agency hoped to roll it out before this year’s UNGA begins on September 23–although it now appears that it will open slightly later now.
In a July presentation to Community Board 6, DOT employee Hayes Lord said that the eight-foot-wide lane would be protected by jersey barriers, although he indicated that the DOT could consider other barriers as necessary. Ten feet of space for cars would be preserved.
The agency believed that a permanent bike lane became necessary after hearing of a “lot of different jockeying maneuvers” transpiring when cars transition aboveground, towards 1st Ave. proper. “When traffic volumes are low, speed becomes an issue, which creates issues for cyclists,” Lord said. He added that this justifies narrowing the space available for cars, which would ostensibly slightly slow down vehicular traffic through the tunnel.
CB6 Transportation Chair Jason Froimowitz expressed satisfaction with the bike lane proposal during the July presentation. When bikers are forced to head aboveground to 1st Ave., he said, they can face a daunting array of obstacles that cause accidents: “It’s an area that’s opportune for conflicts between cyclists, drivers, and pedestrians–and the tunnel presents an opportunity to bypass all of that.”
People that regularly bike the route seem to be excited about its imminent permanence. On r/MicromobilityNYC, a Reddit thread popular with such bikers, one user posted that they were “looking forward to riding this stretch on the regular. It’s always been the one thing about UNGA to look forward to.”
Another user embraced the DOT’s rationale for axing a car lane. “Getting rid of one of the Northbound lanes through the tunnel doesn’t significantly affect the capacity of the tunnel,” they wrote, “and eliminates a conflict point at the zipper merge at the north end of the tunnel.”
On September 11, Community Board 6 officially made their overwhelming support of the new bike lane known via a resolution, which passed by a vote of 35 to 6. The resolution noted that the to-be-permanent lane could be altered as needed: “There is an open opportunity to have the preliminary design implemented imminently, and to make changes later on.” CB6 also asked the DOT to engage in “ongoing data collection to evaluate the area for safety and traffic flow,” specifically related to the “ingress” and “egress” points that the agency is focussing on.
The resolution concluded that “the implementation of a protected bike lane will provide a dedicated space for cyclists, reducing conflicts between bicycles and motor vehicles, and encouraging more individuals to choose cycling as a mode of transportation.”