New York Built 20.9 Miles of Protected Bike Lane in 2018, Falling Short of Record

Last year, New York set a record for the most miles of protected bike lanes the city had ever built, that record might have been broken this year, but the city failed to hit its lofty goals. "The city Department of Transportation revealed on Wednesday that it fell short of its own projection of installing 29.4 miles of protected cycling routes in the city this year — a prediction that would have represented a whopping 18-percent increase from last year’s record 24.9 miles," Gersh Kuntzman reports for Streetsblog NYC.

Still, 20-some miles a year is a rapid expansion compared to what New York had accomplished in the past and what other cities have done around the country. Some of the paths that have yet to be built may come online in 2019. "The shortfall likely resulted from projects that were delayed by the administration, including the fourth phase of Queens Boulevard (2.2 miles), filling a nine-block gap on Second Avenue in Manhattan (.4 miles), constructing a protected lane on Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn (1.3 miles), and completing other projects that have been shelved, though possibly only temporarily," Kuntzman writes.

Kuntzman argues that more might have been built if projects hadn’t been held up at the neighborhood level.