The city is starting the long-planned full redesign of the northern part of McGuinness Boulevard after years of meetings and a corruption scandal. The Department of Transportation will extend the existing design from south of Calyer Street by removing one lane of vehicle traffic in each direction and adding parking-protected bike lanes along both curbs up to Freeman Street. The work is expected to take two or three months. When completed, parking-protected bike lanes will run from the Pulaski Bridge to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The redesign effort began after a hit-and-run death in May 2021, followed by local advocacy, capital funding, public outreach, plan finalization in May 2023, and later reconsideration and a compromise before the current rollout.
"Starting this week, the Department of Transportation will extend the design already in place on the boulevard south of Calyer Street, taking away one lane of vehicle traffic in each direction and adding parking-protected bike lanes along both curbs, up to Freeman Street."
"When it's finished, the infamously dangerous boulevard will have parking-protected bike lanes all the way from the Pulaski Bridge to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway."
""McGuinness Boulevard should stitch Greenpoint together, not divide it in half," Flynn said. "These upgrades will make it safer and easier for children and parents to cross the street, it will protect cyclists, reduce reckless driving, and transform what can feel like a highway into a calmer neighborhood street.""
"The redesign has been in the works since public school teacher Matthew Jensen was killed in a hit-and-run in May 2021. After Jensen's death, locals created the advocacy group Make McGuinness Safe, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio allocated capital funding for a total redesign of the boulevard, and the city started public outreach for in-house safety improvements."
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