Rendering courtesy of NYCDOT
The streets on both ends of the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge over the East River in New York will be remade this summer into safer, people-first spaces as part of the long-awaited reopening of the span's south outer roadway, designed to finally give cyclists and pedestrians a separate path to walk and ride on.
The New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT), which has delayed the project for more than a year, showed off its designs to Manhattan Community Boards 6 and 8, and Queens Community Board 2 during the first week of April, Streetsblog NYC reported April 8, and the big winners are pedestrians and cyclists.
The biggest roadway change will be on the Queens side. The pedestrian/cyclist path that leads to the north outer roadway will remain untouched for this project, but NYCDOT will make a few key safety upgrades around the bridge entrance on the south side.
Right now, crossing the street near the south outer roadway forces people to go 114 ft. between sidewalks, according to the transportation agency's presentation. Those pedestrians also are dealing with drivers who come off the Queensboro Bridge.
The city said it will eliminate the danger by building a concrete landing at the base of the south outer roadway and a concrete median and sidewalk extension to 27th Street separating drivers headed to Queens Boulevard North or South.
On the Manhattan side, the north end of East 59th Street between First and Second avenues will get a painted pedestrian bump out, a painted sidewalk connected to Second Avenue and a short midblock crossing near the entrance to the bridge's proposed pedestrian path.
In addition, cyclists will get a new westbound bike lane on the north side of East 59th Street, and the bike lane on First Avenue will be slightly widened.
The desperately needed move to finally separate cyclists and pedestrians on the Queensboro Bridge is planned to occur sometime in "the late summer," according to the NYCDOT presentation.
That tracks with what the agency told Council Member Julie Won in February and would finally end a years-long delay since then-Mayor Bill de Blasio said in 2021 that his administration would open the roadway to pedestrians by the end of 2022. His successor, current Mayor Eric Adams, had stalled the handover to pedestrians during his first two years in office, until now.
The city insisted that the south outer roadway needed to stay open during a bridge reconstruction project to prevent a 5 percent increase in waiting time for drivers. The price of avoiding that small traffic increase, though, has been the crowding of eastbound and westbound cyclists together with pedestrians along a narrow two-way path, resulting in at least 23 accidents injuring 25 people since the beginning of 2021, Streetsblog NYC noted.
Bridge Completion to Come Before Most People-First Fixes
The Queensboro Bridge reconstruction project is not yet finished, so NYCDOT is still giving cars access to the south outer roadway, meaning that some of the concrete work on the Queens side will be done after pedestrians have access to the south outer roadway, according to the transportation department.
However, a NYCDOT representative told Queens Community Board 2 that the agency is not waiting around until this summer to do all of the work, so the concrete median on the Queens side will at least go in before the roadway is open.
"Normally, we would wait for the bridge construction project to be completed," explained NYCDOT Queens Deputy Borough Commissioner Jason Banrey. "Instead, we're going to be out there working while the bridge construction is still going so we can get some stuff done ahead of time so we can open this up faster."
Just as important as the new construction itself is NYCDOT's continuing commitment to actually finishing the project, according to one council member who represents an area on the Manhattan side of the bridge.
"The opening of the pedestrian walkway on the Queensboro Bridge is long overdue and has been a serious safety concern and impediment to movement for both pedestrians and cyclists," noted New York City Council Member Julie Menin.
"While we welcome the anticipated late summer 2024 opening of the walkway, we remain concerned about date slippage. We urge [NYCDOT] to give frequent updates to the council and the public on the progress to date and strictly adhere to the promised timeline."
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