NYC DOT
The line stretched down the block at Broadway and West 95th Street, the room filled up fifteen minutes before the gavel even came down, and roughly 140 people signed up to argue one of the Upper West Side’s most divisive questions of the year: should West 72nd Street get a protected bike lane?
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On Tuesday night, Community Board 7 gave its answer. By a vote of 26 to 17, the board passed a resolution endorsing Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Department of Transportation’s plan to install a two-way protected bike lane along West 72nd Street — a redesign that would hand the neighborhood its first safe crosstown cycling link between Central Park and the Hudson River.The vote is advisory; community boards have no legal power to stop or start a street project. But it lands as a clear signal of where the neighborhood’s official body stands, and Mamdani has already pledged to back his DOT’s safety proposals even where they draw a fight. The city could begin installing the redesign as early as this summer, according to DOT.
And there was plenty of fight in the room. Opponents arrived loud, repeatedly shouting and stalling the board’s slow march through public testimony, with some insisting the lane would sit empty even as a parade of their neighbors lined up to say they’d use it.
Per NY1, Upper West Side resident Pamela Manasse warned the changes would “make it impossible for people like myself who are disabled to get access into an accessible car to be picked up to go into doctor’s appointments or anywhere.” Others said they’d been shut out of the planning and questioned whether more bike infrastructure makes streets any safer.
Supporters framed it as a basic matter of survival on a chaotic street. “I live on W. 72nd and bike regularly,” said Laura Sachs, one of 80 people who signed up to speak in favor, per Streetsblog. “I’m not a delivery person, I’m not a tour group, I’m not in spandex… I am afraid to bike home on my own street, the double parking is difficult to navigate. I support this fully because it improves safety for all users.”
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Advocates argue the street’s current layout is badly out of step with who actually uses it. West 72nd is a wide, four-lane arterial, yet pedestrians, cyclists, and bus riders together make up roughly 75 percent of the people moving along the corridor while nearly all of the roadway is given over to moving and storing cars, according to Open Plans, the transportation nonprofit behind the local advocacy project StreetopiaUWS.“The data shows that bike lanes make streets safer and more accessible for everyone who uses them. And as the parent of a bike riding ten-year old, I know we don’t have nearly enough of them,” said Carl Mahaney, director of StreetopiaUWS, in a statement from Open Plans. “Safety upgrades like the one planned for West 72nd Street are not radical or untested. They are routine, basic infrastructure, and this one is long overdue.”
The plan does more than stripe a bike lane. DOT would convert West 72nd Street from four moving lanes of car traffic to two, using the reclaimed space for turning bays and the two-way protected lane. The agency is also adding metered parking, loading zones, pedestrian islands, curb extensions with shorter crossing distances, and eight-foot-wide raised bus boarding islands, plus a two-way protected connection along Riverside Boulevard between West 68th and West 72nd Streets to tie cyclists directly into the greenway and Riverside Park. Supporters note the redesign would also extend park-style trees and plantings along the street, adding shade and cutting the heat-island effect.
DOT pointed to its safety record to answer worries from older residents, noting that protected bike lanes have coincided with a 39 percent drop in seniors killed or severely injured in traffic crashes citywide.
This has been a long time coming — nearly six years, in fact. CB7 first voted to have DOT bring forward a plan for the corridor back in September 2020, and the board’s transportation committee endorsed the current redesign in April.
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“I’ve been through all the bike lane battles, every single one, and it’s always been like this,” CB7 transportation co-chair Ken Coughlin told the board, per Streetsblog, arguing that opponents’ fears about lost business and added danger have repeatedly “proven to be unfounded.”The fight isn’t crossing the park alone, either: DOT says it plans to bring a companion redesign for East 72nd Street to the Upper East Side’s Community Board 8.
Previous Coverage:
Opponents Rally Against 72nd Street Bike Lane Proposal (May 4, 2026)
DOT Proposes Protected Bike Lane Across 72nd Street (April 15, 2026)
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