A new protected bike lane on a 1.3-mile stretch of Brooklyn’s Court Street has divided many of the corridor’s residents leading to media attention and a lawsuit that could result in the dismantling of a potentially life-saving road diet that has already calmed aggressive traffic and soothed countless rattled nerves—including my own.
Like thousands of other New Yorkers, I ride a non-electric bicycle pretty much everywhere I go. I’ve been navigating the city’s busy, crowded streets by bike for nearly 30 years. My current morning commute takes me from the brownstones of Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn across the Brooklyn Bridge to Lower Manhattan, and then back again each evening.
The ride has proven to be a relatively safe, invigorating way to start the day and the perfect way to clear my head after work, with the exception of the very last leg of the ride southbound on Court Street. But that all changed as if through divine intervention when the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) began putting the finishing touches on a Court Street redesign that includes a protected bike lane.
The DOT’s redesign created the protected lane by removing one of two travel lanes on a roadway that previously funneled fast-moving cut-through traffic to the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway (BQE). The redesign also includes pedestrian islands that shorten crossing distances and “quick curbs” at intersections to encourage slower, safer turns across crosswalks.
Before the redesign, the roughly one-mile stretch of Court Street was a reality show of rush-hour chaos, a dangerous, crash-riddled obstacle course that, from around 4:00pm to 7:00pm each evening, delivered a daily dose of terror-inducing anxiety to cyclists and pedestrians. For me, the fear was fueled by more than a few real close calls with speeding cars and trucks driven by clearly aggressive motorists in a hurry to get somewhere else.
If there were ever a place that confirmed bicyclists are mere human eggshells on wheels, it was Court Street pre–DOT road diet. Almost every afternoon, cyclists and pedestrians, including nervous parents with small children, dodged drivers passing each other, running red lights, and swerving around double-parked cars as they raced south toward the BQE as if competing for a NASCAR championship. When the street was less congested, cars and trucks often drove even faster.
The DOT has called Court Street one of the city’s most dangerous corridors. Between 2020 and 2024, 155 people were injured—11 seriously—on the stretch from Schermerhorn Street to Hamilton Avenue. There were also two fatalities.
Nonetheless, online community forums such as Nextdoor lit up with residents raging at the DOT for taking away a lane of automobile traffic, many claiming the redesign’s squeezing of cars into one lane was dangerous and backing up traffic. A few residents who actually own automobiles complained (and still do) that parking is more difficult. There were also claims that emergency vehicles would be unable to pass other cars, but emergency vehicles can use the bike lane and breeze past clogged traffic when needed. Some Court Street merchants who brought the lawsuit say they weren’t consulted by the DOT, while also arguing the redesign is bad for business, despite the fact that most people and customers don’t drive to Court Street.
Streetsblog NYC reported that the Court Street Merchants Association, the group that brought the lawsuit, argued in court on Nov. 24 it wanted DOT to install an unprotected lane so that cars have more “maneuverability.” City officials responded that would jeopardize safety and allow for the return of rampant double parking.
When I talk to my neighbors, some who like me, ride bicycles; others who drive; and all of us, at one time or another, pedestrians on the street, they generally agree that transformations such as the Court Street redesign take time for New Yorkers to get used to. Most agreed that Court Street pre-redesign was incredibly dangerous and that the road diet has had a calming effect overall despite a few rush hour traffic bottlenecks.
For my part, when I use the new bike lane, I make a concerted effort to obey traffic laws, stop at lights, smile as pedestrians cross, and practice common courtesy whenever possible, because, let’s face it, cyclists often get a well-earned bad rap for ignoring rules. But, automobile drivers who are psychologically hard-wired into thinking the road is exclusively for them, many who drive at high speeds, disobey traffic laws, or engage in other dangerous behaviors such as the intimidation of pedestrians or cyclists, certainly aren’t any better and Court Street seemed to encourage the worst of the worst driving behavior.
New York City’s streets are our largest public space, and for nearly a century we’ve surrendered all but a fraction of that space to automobiles. We’ve come to accept automobile violence as just another unfortunate part of life, a reality we’re forced to live with. Projects such as the Court Street redesign allow us, or in some cases, force us, to rethink what a roadway’s purpose and possibilities are beyond serving merely as a means for drivers to get from point A to point B as fast as possible. Hopefully, the redesign will survive in court and maybe after a year or so, even the project’s opponents will be well pleased with the changes.
More importantly, it’s important to remember that protected bike lanes reduce crash injuries by 15% overall, including an 18% reduction among pedestrians and a 22% reduction for senior pedestrians, according to DOT data.
If the calming impact of the Court Street redesign saves just one person—pedestrian, cyclist, or an automobile driver or passenger—from grievous injury or death, the few minutes some drivers might have added to their afternoon commute is well worth it.
Cody Lyon is a Brooklyn resident and cyclist.
