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If you’ve ever walked or biked over the Queensboro Bridge, which thousands of New Yorkers do every day, then you know it can be a pretty unpleasant, borderline dangerous experience.
But after years of renovation work, both sides of the Queensboro Bridge are about to get safer for pedestrians and cyclists, complete with color-coded access points, wider lanes and clearer indications of where bikers can actually ride.
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There’s renewed excitement for the project after community boards in Manhattan and Queens shared renovation designs last week.
On the Manhattan side, the current pedestrian access point has no direct crosswalk for people who want to go from one side of 59th Street to the entrance of the bridge. Bikers and pedestrians are forced to share several entry points, which increases the risk of collisions. The proposal includes adding painted sidewalks that indicate where pedestrians can walk, expanding the area at the entrance of the bridge, and installing new crosswalks for direct access onto the bridge.
For bike riders, improvements include dedicated lanes and clearer indications all throughout.
The Queens side is currently even more perilous for pedestrians as there is no clear path for folks who want to enter the bridge from Queens Plaza, a design flaw that basically forces folks to run across several lanes of traffic and hope for the best. The latest proposal includes an actual crosswalk, traffic signals and concrete landings to protect people from oncoming traffic.
Thousands use the Queensboro Bridge everyday—in fact, it’s the second-most used bridge for bikers on the East River after the Williamsburg Bridge, per the Department of Transportation. On top of the heavy bike traffic, more than 2,785 people walk on the overpass every day despite its current subpar conditions.
Which is all to say: the renovations have been a very long time coming, actually kicking off back in 2018 but slugging throughout the span of two local administrations.
At last, the work is expected to be completed by this summer. To see the full report and plans for renovations, check out the Department of Transportation’s presentation here.