Queens-to-Brooklyn Bike Lane Welcomes First Riders

Pictured: The ceremonial first ride over the Pulaski Bridge in Greenpoint. Photos by John V. Santore

GREENPOINT, BROOKLYN — Cyclists took their first spin along the Pulaski Bridge's new protected bike lane on Friday, years after the project was first proposed as a way to ease congestion and increase safety on the bridge.

Formerly, Pulaski Bridge's bike lane — connecting Brooklyn and Queens by way of Newtown Creek — doubled as a pedestrian walkway.

That space is now reserved for pedestrians only. And cyclists now enjoy their own strip of roadway — separated from traffic by a cement wall topped by a steel barrier.

On Friday, Richard Furlong, 50, and his 7-year-old son Jackson were waiting to peddle across the bridge on a tandem bicycle.

Furlong remembered the old lane as "crowded," and said it had been "hard to get by without endangering people."

Another rider, 34-year-old Lewis Tenjo, called the new system "safer for everybody."

Tenjo, who rides Pulaski Bridge regularly, said a good portion of the bridge's bike traffic comes from people using the CitiBike system.

Indeed: At a press conference Friday celebrating the new lane, Jules Flynn, CitiBike's general manager, said the network's station on the Queens side of the bridge is that borough's busiest.

CitiBike users "are usually rookie riders, so they tend to wobble sometimes," Tenjo said. "That's when people can get hurt."

Ryan Russo, the Department of Transportation's deputy commissioner for transportation planning and management, said at Friday's presser that the DOT started planning the lane in October 2012.

Construction finally started late last year, after several delays blamed in part on engineering challenges. (The Pulaski is a movable bridge, which meant engineers had to re-calibrate the amount of weight it could lift and alter the design of the bike lane's barrier accordingly.)

The final price tag for the construction job came out to about $4.9 million, Russo said — funding that came from both the federal government and the city.

According to the DOT, thousands of bikers use the bridge each day.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams said the lane is a representation of the city's commitment to "moving forward in a way that is safer [and] smarter" for commuters.

A total of four bikers were killed on New York City streets during the first two months of this year, according to city statistics. Another 352 were injured.

Then, this April, two Brooklyn bikers were killed just days apart: Park Slope resident James Gregg, 33, and Lauren Davis, 34, from the Crown Heights area.