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Bike Lanes Coming to Ridgewood and Glendale This Summer

By Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska | February 19, 2014 8:53am
 New bike lanes are coming to Ridgewood and Glendale (solid purple lines).
New bike lanes are coming to Ridgewood and Glendale (solid purple lines).
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City Planning

QUEENS — Queens bicyclists have a rare reason to celebrate. This summer, the city will begin implementing a network of bike lanes in Ridgewood and Glendale, which will connect to bike paths in Brooklyn.

The move will help alleviate the dearth of bike lanes outside of Western Queens, which has frustrated bike advocates.

“It’s great because this part of Queens has almost no bike infrastructure at all,” said Peter Beadle, a member of Transportation Alternatives Queens Activist Committee.

During the first phase of the plan, scheduled to be implemented this summer, bike lanes will be built along Himrod and Harman streets, from Evergreen to Metropolitan avenues, and along Onderdonk and Woodward avenues, as well as portions of Catalpa and 69th avenues, from Flushing to Cooper avenues, according to data provided by the Department of City Planning.

The next phase, expected to be implemented by 2015, will soon be evaluated by the DOT. It would include bike lanes along Eliot Avenue, a large stretch of Metropolitan and Grand avenues, 69th Street and Fresh Pond Road, covering large portions of Middle Village and Maspeth.

“It would pretty significantly connect that whole part of Queens,” Beadle said.

The Department of Transportation said that the new lanes will be installed as pairs of one-way lanes and "will help improve connectivity to the city's larger bike-lane network." 

The routes will connect to the lanes which already exist in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

“It’s very important to make sure that these things connect so we are building transportation infrastructure,” Beadle noted.

The proposal, which was approved by Community Board 5 last week, was initiated by Ridgewood and Glendale residents in 2011, when they approached  requesting bike lanes.

In May last year, the DCP held a bicycle forum in the neighborhood during which residents had a chance to make suggestions.

Based on their input, the DOT and DCP developed a map of a bicycle network which, after a number of revisions, was approved by CB5.