And between W. 31st and W. 35th streets through Herald Square, DOT won\u2019t change the existing five-foot-wide bike\u00a0lane, but will\u00a0add nine feet of expanded pedestrian space, which will do a lot to keep pedestrians outside of the roadway in one of the busiest pedestrian areas of Midtown.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat better way to welcome the World Cup than\u00a0by making our streets safer and more accessible for everyone who uses them?\u201d Mayor Mamdani said in a statement. \u201cFrom Sixth Avenue in Manhattan to Broadway in Queens and the iconic Brooklyn Bridge,\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0redesigning our streets\u00a0to\u00a0better\u00a0protect\u00a0pedestrians,\u00a0cyclists\u00a0and drivers alike.\u00a0Long after\u00a0the sun\u00a0sets\u00a0on this summer of celebration, these improvements\u00a0will continue serving New Yorkers every single day.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Double-wide bike lanes work: In 2024, DOT\u00a0installed\u00a0one\u00a0on\u00a0Sixth Avenue from\u00a0Lispenard\u00a0Street to W. 13th Street. In the full year before the lane went in, 26 cyclists and pedestrians were injured. In the full year after the lane went in, 21 cyclists and pedestrians were injured, despite the much higher number of cyclists who flocked to the lane upon its completion.<\/p>\n
But the stretch without the wider bike lane remains dangerous. According to DOT, between\u00a02019 and 2023, there were 29 traffic deaths and severe injuries on Sixth Avenue between 13th and 35th streets, enough that DOT considers the stretch a \u201cVision Zero Corridor\u201d that requires additional safety features.<\/p>\n
Wider bike lanes have become an increasingly popular toolkit for DOT. In addition to the portion of Sixth Avenue\u00a0south of 14th Street<\/a>, the agency also added the upsized lanes to other\u00a0busy bike corridors in Manhattan, including\u00a0Ninth Avenue<\/a>,\u00a010th Avenue<\/a>,\u00a0Third Avenue<\/a>, and\u00a0Second Avenue<\/a>, along with\u00a0Queens Boulevard<\/a>\u00a0in the World\u2019s Borough.<\/p>\n Such\u00a0projects have\u00a0reduced\u00a0deaths and serious injuries for all road users by 30 percent and for pedestrians by nearly 32 percent, DOT said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe Mamdani administration has tasked us\u00a0to work with urgency to improve safety on our streets,\u201d Flynn said in a statement. \u201cSixth Avenue\u00a0now hosts\u00a0one the city\u2019s most popular bike lanes, and it is time\u00a0we make it even better.\u00a0\u2026 Widening this bike lane\u00a0will make the street safer for everyone and provide a calmer,\u00a0more comfortable cycling experience by allowing more room for passing.\u201d<\/p>\n The room will be created by removing one parking lane on Sixth Avenue.<\/p>\n The history of biking on Sixth Avenue is a fraught one. It\u2019s almost become an urban fable, but it\u2019s true: then-Mayor Ed Koch returned from a trip to bike-friendly China and demanded that the Department of Traffic install a protected bike lane on the then-Avenue of the Americas. It was four-feet wide and protected with concrete curbs.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/DOT-sixth-ave-diagram-with-stroke.png\")
Here\u2019s what the plan looked like when DOT showed it off last year. Graphic: DOT<\/p>\n