Manhattan officials call on DOT to close Sixth Avenue bike lane gap

Six Manhattan officials are urging the Department of Transportation to fill a gap in the protected bike lane along Sixth Avenue.

The bike lane on the throughway runs from Franklin Street to Canal Street and then disappears before starting again on West 8th Street, where it continues through West 59th Street. In a letter to DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodríguez, elected officials including Councilmember Erik Bottcher and U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman called on the DOT to connect those two sections.

“Riders are navigating almost twenty blocks of unprotected and heavily trafficked roadway,” the letter reads. “The Department of Transportation should prioritize a new bike lane at this location, which has been a long standing request of the community.”

The bike lane on Sixth Avenue was rebuilt in 2020 after another one along the same path was ripped out 40 years earlier. It had been a long time coming, after Community Board 2 first passed a resolution for a feasibility study in 2014. But bikers coming from Downtown Manhattan, like Bottcher, still have to brave vehicle traffic for 20 blocks before getting to it, he said.

“You know that you're going to need to take Sixth Avenue, you know you're going to be in danger,” he said, “because you're going to have to be riding in the same lane as speeding traffic, cars and trucks.”

Nick Benson, a spokesperson for the DOT, said the department expects an expansion of the bike lane, but did not provide a timeline.

“We appreciate the elected leaders who have expressed support for the expansion of the protected bike lane on 6th Avenue,” Benson said in an email. “Last year we installed an all-time high 32 miles of protected bike lanes – more than every other major city in America combined – and we look forward to further expansion on 6th Avenue.”

Mayor Eric Adams has been criticized for falling short on his campaign promise of installing 300 miles of bike lanes in four years. According to street safety group Transportation Alternatives, the city has only installed 1.1 miles of protected bike lanes so far this year, just over 2% of the 50-mile a year target benchmark laid out in the NYC Safety Street Plan.