It\u2019s going to be a wheely good summer in Lower Manhattan.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s Department of Transportation last week announced<\/a> a wave of cyclist and pedestrian upgrades to the streets ahead of this summer\u2019s World Cup activities. The highlight will be a long-desired continuous two-way bike route that will directly connect the Brooklyn Bridge to Union Square, which means a nice, safe ride up from Lower Manhattan. That project will involve widening the existing one-way bike lane from five feet to 11 feet, creating room for bicycles to travel both north and south, and create a smoother route overall.\u00a0<\/p>\n The upgraded connection will link the Brooklyn Bridge up to the Flatiron District along Lafayette and Centre streets and as Fourth Avenue converges with Broadway.<\/p>\n The improvement to the bike lane network fixes what has long been a \u201cgaping hole\u201d in the system, leaving no safe way to travel south below 14th Street, Ben Furnas, executive director of the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, said in a press release.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThanks to the project being announced today, New Yorkers will finally be able to safely bike from Union Square all the way down to the Brooklyn Bridge,\u201d Furnas said. \u201cThe redesign will also bring significantly more pedestrian space \u2014 sorely needed ahead of this summer\u2019s World Cup!\u201d<\/p>\n The continuous bike lane is just one of the improvements that Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s administration says it will take on in April. Other improvements include adding a two-way bike lane around Park Row<\/a> so cyclists can get on and off the Brooklyn Bridge bike path without having to cut through a crowd of pedestrians.\u00a0<\/p>\n All these moves are in advance of the World Cup<\/a>, which is expected to bring loads of soccer-hungry visitors from around the world to the city (even if the actual games are being played across the water at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey).\u00a0<\/p>\n