BOROUGHWIDE — Bicycle ridership reflected significant growth this year, which the New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez attributed to safe cycling infrastructure. 

“More and more New Yorkers are opting to get around by bike because it’s a fast, convenient and safe way to travel around the city. Another year of record-breaking ridership over our four iconic East River bridges illustrates how NYC DOT’s efforts to build safe cycling spaces has spurred tremendous growth,” said Rodriguez.

Rodriguez announced that bicycle ridership over the East River bridges, which include the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg and Ed Koch Queensboro bridges, reached a record-breaking high for the fourth year in a row. On average, more than 28,108 cyclists traveled over the four bridges daily, reflecting an 8.4% increase from 2023 — 17 times the greater than ridership recorded in 1980. 

The new data shows that 762,000 New Yorkers are consistent bike riders and 25,462 Brooklynites biked to work in the past year. September 2024 marked the first time that daily bridge ridership passed 30,000, with the cycling average that month reflecting 31,168 riders across the four bridges.

Though all the bridges reflected a significant increase in ridership, the Brooklyn Bridge recorded the largest increase at 15.4%, or 735 more average daily cyclists than in 2023, and 108% increase since 2021, when the city’s bicycling increase first spiked in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Williamsburg Bridge remains the busiest bridge for cyclists, with an 11% increase in average daily ridership compared to 2023. 

“The 1980 average of 1,635 daily cycling trips across all East River bridges is roughly the equivalent of the ridership recorded by the end of a weekday morning rush hour today on just the Brooklyn Bridge,” the NYC DOT said in a statement released on Monday, Dec. 9.

The safe cycling infrastructure also broke records, with the NYC DOT delivering an all-time high number of protected bike lanes in 2023 and furthering those projects throughout 2024. The expansion of protected bike lanes targeted interborough travel and connections to the East River bridges. Brooklyn saw this infrastructure in the bike boulevard on Berry Street in Williamsburg and a protected bike lane on Navy Street and Ashland Place in Downtown Brooklyn.

The NYC DOT plans to continue expanding safe cycling infrastructure. In 2024, the NYC DOT widened bike lanes on Second Avenue in Manhattan to increase access to the East River bridges, and in 2025, the agency aims to further access to the bridges and interborough cycling by beginning major bike lane and public space improvements along Delancey Street, doubling the amount of cycling and pedestrian space.

“We look forward to continuing this bike boom, which is good for our environment, the health of New Yorkers and for reducing New Yorkers’ dependence on congestion-causing vehicles,” said Rodriguez.

The NYC DOT also finished phase three of the CitiBike program in partnership with Lyft this year, which increased access to the CitiBike bike sharing program after the program received criticism for not providing sufficient service to the outer boroughs and neighborhoods predominantly of color and low income areas. The program aims to increase bike access and provide a sustainable mode of transportation.

Because of increased access to the CitiBike bike sharing program, the NYC DOT expects that more New Yorkers were encouraged to take advantage of expanded bike lanes through CitiBike, especially near bridges and main streets. 

The NYC DOT’s annual bike traffic counts are conducted from April through the end of October — during warm weather months, excluding holidays and rainy days — each year, and the agency has been recording and documenting cycling levels since 1980.

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