Sometimes The City Has To Destroy A Bike Lane Before It Can Reinstall A Bike Lane In The Same Place

Back in 2017, after nearly a decade of prodding from safe streets advocates, the city installed a protected bike lane on Inwood's Dyckman Street. Less than a year later, at the urging of Congressman Adriano Espaillat and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, they ripped it out—making it the first protected bike lane to be uninstalled during the Vision Zero era.

But like a Phoenix rising from the ashen exhaust pipe of an idling double-parked car, the Dyckman Street bike lane is back once again.

According to a Department of Transportation spokesperson, the city has begun work on the new protected route, which will stretch along the north side of the busy commercial thoroughfare for roughly half a mile. Work between Broadway and Nagle Avenue will be finished by the end of the year, while work east of Nagle Avenue will begin next year, according to a DOT spokesperson.

Reinstallation of the controversial bike lane was announced in July, as part of Mayor Bill de Blasio's response to an ongoing spike in cyclist deaths.

The lane was supposed to appear within weeks, serving as "a critical connector that will help complete the Manhattan Greenway," according to the Mayor's Office. (City officials have all but refused to acknowledge the about-face on Dyckman)

Neither Espaillat nor Brewer responded to Gothamist's inquiries about the new lane. Both had opposed the initial redesign on behalf of local motorists and business owners, and it's unclear whether they'll try to get the city to erase the bike lane once again.

“A protected route connecting the Hudson River Greenway with the Harlem River Greenway is absolutely crucial," Joe Cutrufo, a spokesperson with Transportation Alternatives, told Gothamist on Monday. "It’s a shame, though, that the previous iteration was torn out. Parochial politics should never come before safe street design.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this post included photos that we believed to be the new bike lane on Dyckman Street. According to the DOT spokesperson, those photos actually showed construction of a new bus island.