New bicycle lane on 10th Avenue to be among widest in Manhattan, and it already has New Yorkers taking sides
NEW YORK -- A new bicycle lane is being added to one of the city's busiest avenues. It will be among the widest in Manhattan, at 10 feet across.
Flyers on street poles along 10th Avenue in Hell's Kitchen advertise the new project. The city is reconfiguring lanes from West 38th Street up to 52nd Street.
It has bicycle enthusiasts feeling good.
When asked why he likes it, a man named Mak said, "Because it's better for me to ride so I don't get hit by a car.
A man named Amron agreed, saying, "It's safer, safer for bikers."
The way the new 10-foot-wide bike lane stretches through Hell's Kitchen, it squeezes out one lane of traffic, leaving three car and truck lanes instead of four.
"It's going to be bad, yeah. Bad for us," one driver said.
"I feel that they have enough bike lanes already," added Hell's Kitchen resident Alejandro Romero.
And tearing up the thoroughfare is a headache for some merchants.
At Même Mediterranean restaurant on 10th Avenue at 44th Street, owner Jacob Cohen was ordered to bring down his outdoor dining shed and he's not happy about it.
"They gave me no time after I spent so much money renovating in the spring," Cohen said. "I will lose a lot of business without it."
That's because his outdoor dining shed was on the west side of the street, where the new lane will be.
But sheds on the east side of the street, like one for Fusion restaurant, can stay.
"Something different for 10th Avenue. It's gonna be nice," Fusion owner Miguel Hernandez said.
One of the factors that clinched City Council support, according to Councilman Erik Bottcher, was that parents and school leaders wanted a safer 10th Avenue for students.
"When we had a rally here a year ago, we had the presidents of all the PTAs on this stretch of 10th Avenue come out. And they talked about how dangerous it is when school arrival and dismissal is happening because they have to walk their kids across four lanes of Midtown traffic. This will help make it a lot safer," Bottcher said.
The city Department of Transportation is planning another phase of the project next year -- to take the new lane south on 10th Avenue down to West 14 Street.
