New Bike Lanes Debut in Village and Mid-town; Riders Pleased but Many Ignore Rules of Road
With wider lanes for bikes on multiple avenues throughout Manhattan, an action plan hopes to please bike riders and keep pedestrians safe. But how is it going so far, and will dangerous behaviors grow worse with faster, wider bike lanes?
| 07 Mar 2025 | 08:07
Two riders approach the intersection of 7th Avenue and 38th Street in Midtown Manhattan. The wider, protected bike lanes are meant to make riding safer for the growing number of e-bikers. But some worry the faster, wider lanes will increase the danger to pedestrians since many bikers ignore all traffic laws. (
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A deliverista stops in the bike lane on 7th Avenue, going the wrong way, before continuing, still heading north in the southbound bike lane, in the direction of 39th Street. (
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At the intersection of 7th Avenue and W. 38th Street, a rider stops just in time to avoid colliding with a turning car. In this case, the car making a turn should have yielded to the biker going straight. Thirty bike riders died as a result of accidents in 2023 and 400 bikers were seriously injured. (
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Near the intersection of 6th Avenue and Canal Street, broader and more protected lanes have been put in place by the NYC Department of Transportation. (
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Up and down the avenues of Manhattan, brand new, wider bike lanes have been put in place by the Department of Transportation including a Sixth Ave. stretch connecting the Village to Tribeca and Seventh Ave. in mid-town between 42nd and 34th Streets.
Where once there were single-rider lanes, now bikers can find more space to ride and added protection as they navigate their way up and down some of the city’s main arteries.
“By Completing the Sixth Ave. bike lane, we are not only improving the safety of cyclists, but also enhancing the overall experience for pedestrians and drivers alike,” said Council member Erik Bottcher, who represents West Side neighborhoods from the Village to Hell’s Kitchen. “This project is part of our broader vision to create a more sustainable equitable and safer city for all New Yorkers.”
But even as the web of bike lanes across the city slowly grows, it has created a clash between bike advocates who say it is an environmentally friendly way to move around the city, and some residents who say making the lanes faster and wider will only increase the danger of collisions with, and injuries to, pedestrians.
A reporter who checked out the new bike lanes in the Village and Mid-town noted roughly half the bikers using them ignore all traffic laws and a smattering go the wrong way down one way streets. And should any of them collide with an unsuspecting pedestrian, virtually none have registered their battery powered e-bikes or mopeds.
Gail Gregg, an Upper West Side resident who was knocked down and injured when hit from behind by a wrong way Citi Bike rider after watching a play in Greenwich Village is worried about the wider bike lanes without corresponding enforcement. “Without enforcement of bike laws, such as failure to stop at lights and crosswalks, these new wider bike ‘racetracks’ will only put more pedestrians at risk,” she said.
On the East Side, City Council member Julie Menin complained to the DOT when she suddenly learned that traffic lights along a two-mile so-called “green wave” stretch on Third Ave. between E. 60th St. and E. 96th St. had been recalibrated to conform to the speed of a motorized e-bike or moped going 15 MPH where in the past the lights were calibrated to conform to the car speed limit of 25 MPH. Motorists were angry that cars were crawling up Third Ave. and pedestrians were worried that faster bike lanes would potentially increase dangers. DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez had yet to respond to Menin’s letter asking why no community input was sought prior to the change.
The dangers of renegade e-bikers in New York were highlighted a week ago when a British tourist was bashed in the face by an e-biker riding on the sidewalk, after a minor altercation while he and his companion was crossing with the light at the intersection of Third Ave. and E. 69th St. on Feb. 28. He suffered a bloody nose but he told Our Town he was flying home to London on March 2 and never reported the incident to police. He also said he may never visit New York again after the attack.
The perils of e-bikes in post-pandemic New York even warranted a skit in the 50th anniversary show of Saturday Night Live. A bruised and battered Scarlett Johansson with a broken arm sings “Suddenly E-bikes” to the tune of “Suddenly Seymour.”
Micro-mobility advocates point out that bikes cut pollution and applaud the efforts by the city to make bike lanes safer. Mayor Eric Adams when he was running for mayor in 2021 pledged to build 300 miles of bike lanes. The expansion of the lanes is part of Adams’s “Charge Safe, Ride Safe” plan that is supposed to make travel via bikes and scooters easier while minimizing the danger to pedestrians and creating speed-reduced areas to have cars turn more slowly.
But as Transportation Alternatives, a bike advocacy group points out, the NYC Street Plans called for 250 miles of bike lanes to be built between 2022 and 2026 and so far construction is running woefully behind schedule with only about 84.9 miles of bike lanes installed in that period. Last year, with 50 proposed miles of new bike lanes, only 22.8 were actually built.
But the DOT is pressing on with the expansion program of protected bike lanes such as the new ones on Sixth and Seventh Avenues. According to a press release from the DOT on March 5th, these protected bike lanes “reduce total deaths and serious injuries by 18.1 percent, and pedestrian deaths and serious injuries by 29.1 percent.”
“The Sixth Avenue protected bike lane is just one example of the newer, wider, more robust cycle tracks that NYC DOT has implemented recently in Manhattan, making streets safer and upgrading the riding experience for everyone using micro-mobility devices,” said StreetsPAC Executive Director Eric McClure in the press release.
On Sixth Avenue, between Lispenard Street in Tribeca and W. 13th Street in the West Village, the new wider and safer lanes are flowing with pedal and battery-powered traffic. The Department of Transportation notes this as an especially dangerous area, with 18 deaths and injuries occurring in the stretch between 2019 and 2023. When Straus News went to visit the new stretch of Sixth Avenue, things looked to be going smoothly. Bikes, mainly e-bikes, flew up the avenue through the two-lane-wide green protected lane.
The riders, almost entirely delivery drivers, sometimes chose to stop on red, sometimes not. If they could get through the light without causing an accident or taking down a pedestrian, they went for it. On occasion, a bike could be seen going the wrong way down the wide lanes. While the riders certainly had room to move around and were relatively protected from traffic, some of their more dangerous habits were also on display. From Spring Street to 12th Street, it was business as usual, with about eighty riders being observed, with around half not stopping at red lights.
Over on Seventh in mid-town, things were very much a mirror to the action on lower Sixth Ave. The changes between West 34th and West 42nd Streets feature a new, wider lane. Here, too, the riders appeared to appreciate the wider lane, riding two or even three abreast at times. Like on Sixth, though, it was still subject to some riders flying through red lights, others slowly working their way between the turning cars to get through on red, and some even stopping and waiting for green.
The new changes are certainly popular with bikers. In a period of just eighteen minutes, Straus News counted nearly ninety bikes, deliveristas and casual riders alike, cruising through the intersection at 7th Avenue and 37-38th Street, all doing so without incident, even if half of them did not stop for red lights.