It’s a deadly end
Fourth Ave’s in-the-works bike lanes dump
cyclists into traffi c near construction sites
when complete will allow cyclists
to pedal from Bay Ridge
to Atlantic Avenue in both directions
via separate lanes
along the Bay Ridge– and
Downtown–bound sides of the
road.
But work on the lanes,
which now just span the avenue
from 60th to 64th streets,
halted last August to accommodate
two construction
projects led by the state-run
Metropolitan Transportation
Authority.
One of the projects required
Transportation Authority
workers to close one
of Fourth Avenue’s two Bay
Ridge–bound traffi c lanes
from 52nd to 59th streets, in
order to repair N- and R-line
subway tunnels beneath the
road, according to agency rep
Amanda Kwan. That sevenblock
stretch of work was supposed
to wrap at the end of
last year, but is still in progress,
according to Community
Board 7’s district manager,
Jeremy Laufer.
And amid that ongoing project,
state transit leaders last
month kicked off a second job
to install elevators at the 59th
Street subway station , which
is expected to wrap this fall,
and required shuttering one
of Fourth Avenue’s two Downtown–
bound traffi c lanes between
58th and 60th streets to
accommodate construction.
Both affected Fourth Avenue
lanes are closed for most
of each day, except for during a
2–8 pm window when they open
to vehicle and bicycle traffi c.
But cyclists must fi ght
drivers for room on the road
while riding through those
areas due to the incomplete
bike lanes, according to
Ziglifa, who said motorists
often erupt in bouts of road
rage because they’re forced to
share the street.
LOOK OUT: The city endangered cyclists by painting four-block bike
lanes on Fourth Avenue that end abruptly, spitting bike riders out into
construction sites and forcing them to merge into one lane of vehicle
traffi c, according to outraged two-wheelers. Photo by Maya Harrison
“You get beeped at and
honked at and people fl ipping
you off,” she said. “I’ve been
clipped by a couple of sideview
mirrors.”
On a recent weekday, an
intrepid intern for this newspaper
BY JULIANNE MCSHANE
The city endangered cyclists by
painting bike lanes on Fourth
Avenue that abruptly end at
construction sites where traffi
c is reduced to one lane, forcing
bike riders to choose between
their wheels and their
lives, according to one outraged
bicyclist.
“The construction makes it
bad because you can’t see and
there’s a ton of debris, so you
can risk getting a fl at and biking
over the debris in the bike
lane, or you can swerve into
traffi c,” said Sarah Ziglifa,
who commutes on bike from
her Fort Hamilton home to her
job in Manhattan most days.
“I signal and merge and hope
for the best.”
Last fall, workers with the
city’s Department of Transportation
fi nished painting
the fi rst part of the forthcoming
protected bike paths
on Fourth Avenue — which
saw no less than seven
cyclists hit the sudden end of
the bike lanes at 60th Street in
a 30-minute time span. About
half of the riders frantically
swerved around the work sites
Continued on page 20
COURIER L 14 IFE, FEB. 22–28, 2019 M BR B G