Fourth Avenue Protected Bike Lane is Very Delayed

Something is certainly better than nothing.

DOT has significantly scaled back the number of blocks of protected bike lanes it plans to install on Fourth Avenue this year.

Borough Commissioner Keith Bray told Park Slope cycling advocate David Herman in a letter that the agency will protect 13 blocks — on both sides of the street between Second and 15th streets — to add to the four protected blocks installed this fall between 60th and 64th streets.

The work is part of what is supposed to be an uninterrupted, four-mile protected path from 65th Street in Sunset Park to Atlantic Avenue at the northern edge of Park Slope. It will be western Brooklyn’s first safe north-south cycling connection.

But implementation is delayed due to MTA work on the R train beneath Fourth Avenue, DOT said in July. At the current rate, the project probably won’t be complete until 2020, resulting in a disconnected route that will do little to encourage Sunset Park and Park Slope residents to bike.

“The true benefit of this project will come when the small sections now under way are actually connected to the larger bike network,” Herman said. “I’m hoping that DOT can keep moving ahead and make those connections soon.”

When local community boards approved the project last winter, DOT said it would install the Sunset Park phase between 38th Street and 65th Street this year, and that northern segment to Atlantic Avenue would follow in 2019.

At the time, agency reps told Streetsblog that they would install the bike lanes between 54th Street and 60th Street. That segment was not mentioned in Bray’s letter to Herman, and DOT declined to provide more detail.

“We will complete as much of the project as possible this fall given weather conditions, and plan to resume work as weather permits in spring 2019,” said spokesperson Brian Zumhagen.