Mayor Eric Adams and Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez have announced that pedestrians and cyclists will each have their own dedicated lane on the Queensboro Bridge. Currently, cyclists and pedestrians going in both directions share a single 10-foot-wide lane on the north side of the bridge, while another outer roadway on the south side has been designated for vehicles only since the year 2000. Starting Sunday, pedestrians will have exclusive access to the outer roadway on the south side, as will cyclists on the north side.
“For over 100 years, the Queensboro Bridge has safely connected New Yorkers driving, riding, and walking between Manhattan and Queens, all while offering breathtaking views of the greatest city in the world. Now, our administration will make it even easier and safer to do so,” the mayor said in a statement announcing the change. “The more we make it safe to walk and bike, the more people utilize their bikes, and thanks to new cycling infrastructure in communities near the bridge, more and more pedestrians and cyclists are utilizing the Queensboro Bridge.”
The expansion of cyclist and pedestrian crossings on the Queensboro Bridge has been a politically charged issue for years, with those crossing sans motor vehicle lamenting the lack of space on the single lane dedicated to them. It was Mayor Giuliani who first converted the south lane to vehicle use at the turn of the century, with De Blasio announcing plans to convert it back in 2021, which the incoming Adams administration scuttled until today’s announcement.
A Streetsblog NYC analysis of bike collision data found 25 crashes from that year until 2024, leading to numerous injuries to cyclists like broken noses and bruised ribs, caused mostly by head-on collisions due to lack of room for overtaking. As bike use continues to grow across the city, the Queensboro Bridge has seen a record number of cyclist crossings in recent years, reaching 1.98 million in 2023.
Eric Adams was lambasted in March of this year for abruptly stopping the planned conversion of the outer roadway on the south side, with a spokesperson for the mayor saying at the time that the delay was because Adams “requires a full briefing on how the Department of Transportation plans to roll this out smoothly” before going through with it, even though the DOT has had the plan in the works since at least 2017. The delay, which came with no indication of a future date when the change would be enacted, caused an uproar with activists, who took over the south side outer roadway in protest last month.
Local elected officials were displeased as well, laying out their grievances in a letter addressed to City Hall and the DOT, stating that “the reasons given for this delay are not satisfactory, as all communications from the DOT have indicated that the project is complete and ready to open to the public.” The letter continues: “any further delays to this project that is otherwise ready to open will unnecessarily put at risk the thousands of New Yorkers who cycle and walk the current shared path every day.”
The Queensboro Bridge will be the third bridge to receive extra space for cyclists and pedestrians in recent years, after similar changes were put in place on the Brooklyn Bridge in 2021 and Washington Bridge in 2024.
