It's been just about a year since Manhattan's Community Board 3 voted unanimously for a thorough assessment of the notoriously double-parked and pothole-riddled bike lanes on Chrystie Street, which serve as a crucial connector for Brooklyn bike commuters between the Manhattan Bridge and Houston Street.

Since unprotected bike lanes were added to the street's north and south-bound lanes in 2008, cyclists have argued that the painted lines have faded, and serve as little protection from rogue drivers. Southbound cyclists enjoying the protected bike lane on Second Avenue also get a rude awakening at 1st Street, where they are forced to cross three lanes of traffic in order to enter the southbound painted bike lane on Chrystie south of Houston.

The DOT's proposal, to be presented to CB3 on Tuesday night, establishes a two-way protected bike lane on Chrystie Street from Houston Street to Canal Street, running along the full length of Sarah Roosevelt Park. The southbound lane will extend a few blocks farther, to 2nd Street and Houston Street. The plan is quite similar to a grassroots proposal that cycling advocates mocked up a year ago.

The DOT says the lane could be installed as soon as Fall 2016. Southbound cyclists on Second Avenue will have a safe path to the Manhattan Bridge, and northbound cyclists will be able to turn right off of Chrystie to merge onto the protected northbound lane on 1st Avenue.

Cyclists will be separated from traffic by a parking lane from Canal to Grand, and again from Rivington to Houston. The stretch between Grand and Rivington, where the road is narrower, will be protected by flexible delineators.

Last year some downtown residents pushed back against a two-way bike lane on nearby Clinton Street, which was intended to be a safer Williamsburg Bridge access point for cyclists. In that case, the two-way lane narrowed the roadway significantly, and some locals said the increased cyclist traffic resulted in more collisions. Pedestrians asked for a mid-block crosswalk, and the DOT didn't immediately deliver (it's planned for installation this spring).

On Chrystie Street, there will be no traffic lane reduction (the DOT pointed out that one of the southbound lanes was almost entirely eliminated back in 2008, calming traffic significantly). The proposal also calls for the addition of four new pedestrian islands, and a complete resurfacing of the road—a process that the DOT estimates will require about two or three weeks of overnight work.



A cross-section of the proposed two-way protected bike lane (via DOT).

Speaking with Gothamist last week, DOT Office of Bicycle and Pedestrian Programs Director Sean Quinn explained that two-way bike lanes work best when the road has a good "edge condition," like a park, that keeps car traffic across the lane to a minimum. Still, the proposed lane will have to cross three major intersections—Grand, Delancey and Houston. Most two-way bike lanes in the city, like the Kent Avenue lane in Williamsburg, channel bikes across intersections with considerably less traffic.

The configuration for Houston Street is still being worked out, but a new split-signal system at Delancey and Grand will hold left-turning cars while pedestrians and cyclists continue along Chrystie street in both directions on their own signal.

Bikes turning off of Chrystie against traffic will move into freshly-painted bike boxes—designated areas that let cyclists get ahead of car traffic at an intersection.

In an effort to achieve contiguous, protected lanes from Brooklyn into Manhattan over the Manhattan Bridge, the DOT also confirmed that it will unveil a proposal later this month for parking-protected bike lanes on both sides of notorious Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn, from Sands Street to Schermerhorn Street.

Cyclists recently balked at a DOT proposal to remove a portion of the northbound Jay Street bike lane between York and Prospect streets. The DOT says that plan is now being revised.

"The overall big picture is that with the protected paths on Jay Street, the Manhattan Bridge, and the upgrade on Chrystie, we're going to have, essentially, a protected path from 34th Street all the way into the heart of Downtown Brooklyn," said Quinn. "That's over four miles of protected bike routes."

Last fall, tired of waiting on the DOT, a group of six anonymous safe-streets advocates installed 25 orange traffic cones, alternately topped with sunflowers, along the painted buffer that currently marks the northbound lane on Chrystie between Grand and Delancey. This morning, they reinstalled their cones in anticipation of tomorrow's CB3 meeting.

We have restored the Chrystie St #bikenyc lane. 24 cones, 4 dozen flowers, & flyers about tomorrow night's meeting. pic.twitter.com/WtO8ArQVLS — Transformation Dept. (@NYC_DOTr) March 7, 2016

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article stated that the two-way bike lane proposal extends to 2nd Avenue and 2nd Street. In fact, the northbound lane terminates at Houston, and only the southbound lane continues to 2nd Street. Also, the pending Jay Street proposal will detail parking-protected lanes both northbound and southbound.