SEE The "Super Sidewalks" & Protected Bike Lanes on NYC's 9th Avenue
Channel: Streetfilms®
Date: 2023-03-22

It should never take this long, but persistance pays off!


Residents in Hell's Kitchen have been fighting a very long time to make their loud and dangerous streets safer, more livable and more equitable for the neighborhood. Led by community activist Christine Berthet they have accomplished some seemingly impossible changes to their chunk of Midtown Manhattan.


But the cherry on top is now here: in the last few months NYC's Environmental Protection and the Design and Construction finished a decade long project replacing sewers & water mains on Ninth Avenue in Manhattan and so NYC DOT took the opportunity to expand pedestrian space 10 feet in the project's footprint and to also further harden the protected bike lane there and make it safer.  There are now only three lanes for moving traffic, righting a wrong many decades ago when Robert Moses halved the sidewalks to provide an additional lane to the Lincoln Tunnel.


The most exciting announcement was that NYC DOT said it would be bringing this style of street geometery to other places (presumedly Manhatttan's Avenues) and other overly wide roads throughout the city. 


Check out our amazing Streetfilm, the second half of which goes deeply into the history of the movement and energy behind the Hell's Kitchen folks making it happen since 2005 (and Streetfilms was there!)