The World Cup is coming, the World Cup is coming! And whatever one\u2019s sporting interest in the event might be, culturally and, the city hopes, economically, this will be a huge deal. The Brooklyn Bridge, meanwhile, has been a huge deal since even before its opening in May 1883 so why not tie the two together?<\/p>\n
Such were the thoughts of Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2014a fervent soccer fan\u2014and why, on March 27, 2026, revamping bike and pedestrian access from Centre Street to a span between Manhattan and Brooklyn was linked to World Cup games being played in… New Jersey?<\/p>\n
Speaking at Pier 17 and donning a Department of Transportation baseball cap, the Mayor explained, \u201cNow, while DOT\u2019s installation of dedicated bike lanes in 2021 transformed the experience of crossing the bridge, what we see is that pedestrians and cyclists are still forced into a chaotic bottleneck at the Manhattan entrance. And as we look forward in just a few months, as a massive number of tourists and visitors come to our city for the iconic World Cup, this disorder… [will] only grow worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like the Williamsburg Bridge \u201cZohramp,\u201d<\/a> he introduced in January, improving the Brooklyn Bridge entry points shouldn\u2019t be a big deal but since the issue has been neglected for years, it allows Hizzoner to show he\u2019s paying attention to little things.<\/p>\n From the 1990s cycling boom until the 2010s, the big issue was pedal bicyclists and pedestrians trying to cross bridge together. In the early mornings and in inclement weather, it was fine and even collegial. At other times, it was a death defying obstacle course.<\/p>\n Pedestrians were supposed to be the south side, bicyclists on the north. But many tourists didn\u2019t heed the signs denoting this and on crowded days, there wasn\u2019t enough room for pedestrians on \u201ctheir\u201d side. So, whether in ignorance or self-determination, pedestrians (and runners) stepped to the north side, where they were often greeted by aggressive shouts of \u201cBike Lane! Bike Lane! Bike Lane!\u201d Sometimes whistles were blown, curses heard, blows were exchanged. Many collisions and near-collisions occurred.<\/p>\n Cautious bicyclists began to avoid the Brooklyn Bridge to take the Manhattan Bridge instead, which has a dedicated bicycle path on its north side. Though this was irksome for those trying to get south of City Hall or over to the Hudson River greenway via Chambers Street, the trade-off in safety and sanity was worth it.<\/p>\n Then came e-bikes, mopeds, scooters and other fast speeding \u201cmicromobility\u201d devices. The great deception of transportation \u201cadvocates\u201d is that any of these vehicles, save the carefully ridden cargo-type e-bikes used by kid-carrying parents are natural allies to pedal bicyclists. Tellingly, perhaps, a DOT rendering of the new Brooklyn Bridge design omits such vehicles\u2014as did the images accompanying the DOT\u2019s Greater Greenways plan<\/a> issued in 2025 under Mayor Adams.<\/p>\n A Bicycle Lane Built for Whom?<\/p>\n The dedicated bike lanes of yesterday are the motorized vehicle\u2014 delivery or otherwise\u2014 autobahns of today, meaning there is no place a pedal bicylist is safe<\/a> from speeding, often reckless traffic. While the Adams adminstration made fitful efforts to address these issues, it often ran into objections from the bike advocate groups. Witness the fate of Priscilla\u2019s Law<\/a>, or the manufactured \u201coutrage\u201d over 15 mph CitiBike limits<\/a>\u2014while illegal scooter, moped or souped-up e-bikes go 25-30+ mph wth little in the way of enforcement.<\/p>\n The dedicated bike lane of the Brooklyn Bridge, which replaced a car lane on the span\u2019s Manhattan-bound side in 2021, never had an idyllic period. While wider than the now perilious Manhattan Bridge path, the stress of riding with fast speeding motor vehicles remains.<\/p>\n The street-level Brooklyn Bridge bike lane had side effect. Absent the bike, moped and scooter chaos above, that space was commandeered by illegal vendors<\/a>, the likes of which were never previously allowed there, nor was it ever suggested they should be. From a makeshift illegal cocktail lounge<\/a> to the panorama photographers BLASTING the same Jay-Z song all day every day, Our Town Downtown has reported on the bridge\u2019s vendor problems<\/a>.<\/p>\n A Plan to Fight the Chaos<\/p>\n If the very concept of \u201cbicycle lanes\u201d remains in dispute, Mamdani\u2019s characterization of the Brooklyn Bridge as \u201cchaotic\u201d can\u2019t be faulted. Indeed, while Hizzoner was speaking narrowly of his Centre Street plan, his words could be applied to pedal bicylists battling motor vehicles in the erstwhile bike lanes generally:<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an experience, frankly, that too many New Yorkers have had when they\u2019re looking to take the healthiest way to cross this bridge; it\u2019s one that comes at the expense of their peace of mind, of their sanity, and sometimes even of their safety.\u201d<\/p>\n Also speaking were DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn; Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal; Council Member Christopher Marte; Transportation Alternatives Director Ben Furnas; and World Cup Czar Maya Handa; among others.<\/p>\n Asked if he had any World Cup predictions, Hizzoner answered, \u201cAs an obsessed soccer fan, I was at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, and I was born in Uganda in East Africa; was rooting for Ghana as they played Uruguay in the quarterfinals. I was at the game. It would be the first time that an African nation had ever reached the semifinals. And beyond Luis Su\u00e1rez\u2019s violations of the laws of the game, the most difficult thing was not just crying in that stadium.\u201d<\/p>\n The Mayor went on, discursively, but didn\u2019t answer the prediction question\u2014perhaps because the final brackets hadn\u2019t yet been made. One thing\u2019s for certainly, it won\u2019t be Italy, who days later, failed to make the tournament, again. This wasn\u2019t a loss just for Azurri, but Manhattan\u2019s Little Italy and the historically Italian neighborhoods of Brooklyn also, including nearby Carroll Gardens and Red Hook.<\/p>\n Manhattanites considering a World Cup-themed journey to Brooklyn might wish to root for France or Haiti instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The World Cup is coming, the World Cup is coming! 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