Brooklyn's Third Avenue to Swap Car Lanes for Bike Infrastructure

The New York City Department of Transportation announced a plan to redesign 2.1 miles of Third Avenue in Brooklyn. The project will convert the street's current six to eight car lanes into a four-lane roadway with protected bike lanes on both sides. Parking lanes along the curbs will remain unchanged.

The corridor runs from 62nd Street to 20th Street in the Sunset Park neighborhood. This section passes underneath the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. City officials stated the street currently measures approximately 50 yards in width. The new design aims to reduce this width by adding pedestrian islands at intersections to shorten crossing distances.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration is moving forward with the project after it stalled under former Mayor Eric Adams. Transportation officials presented several safety plans to the local community board during the previous administration but did not implement them. Mamdani described the changes as a necessary step to put people first.

The decision follows the death of 28-year-old nurse Jiayi Zheng. She was struck by a hit-and-run driver on the avenue at 55th Street in August. Zheng was walking home from a shift at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, located one block away. The New York Police Department reported on Tuesday that the driver has not yet been found and no arrests have been made.

Work on the section between 62nd and 43rd Streets is scheduled to begin next year. The department will also install bike lanes on 60th Street between Second and Fourth Avenues. Construction on the remaining stretch from 43rd Street to 20th Street will start in 2028.

Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn said the city will improve its most dangerous streets within the next three years. He added that the department cannot wait for another tragedy to occur. Flynn also noted that officials are exploring future redesigns for sections of Third Avenue south of 65th Street and north of Prospect Avenue in Gowanus.

City data shows 17 people died in crashes along this specific stretch of Third Avenue over the last decade. More than half of those fatalities involved pedestrians or cyclists. In 2020, nurse Clara Kang, 31, was killed by a motorcyclist after an overnight shift. Officials reduced the speed limit on the corridor to 25 miles per hour following that incident but did not pursue a larger roadway redesign at the time.

Mamdani stated that the redesign will transform the avenue to protect pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers. The mayor emphasized that calmer intersections and shorter crossings are key to street safety. The administration faces pressure from advocates after multiple hit-and-run deaths occurred in a single week this summer.