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For cyclists, the good times roll on two wheels in New York City.
Cycling boomed in New York City during 2020, according to a new annual report from the Department of Transportation that confirmed the highly acclaimed bicycle boom of the COVID era in Five Boroughs.
“If you look around with your own two eyes, you already know bicycles are everywhere,” DOT Commissioner Hank Gutman told reporters at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge bike path in Chinatown on Thursday, October 7th.
The DOT’s annual Cycling in the City report on two-wheeled trends in the Big Apple shows that there were 1.8 million more bike rides in 2020 compared to 2019, a 33% increase in several locations the agency counts, including the four East River bridges and Brooklyn’s Prospect Park West and Kent Avenue.

More people also jumped on the saddle on weekends with a 63% bump in weekend cycling at these locations or 900,000 more pedal pushers, according to the agency.
The bridges alone saw a 21% growth in cyclists, but Brooklyn Bridge — before it got a new bike lane last month — was outlier with a small drop year-over-year and a whopping 30% drop from 2015 -2020, according to the data .
The largest increase was on the Queensboro Bridge at 35% more crossings in the last five years, followed by 22% more on the Williamsburg Bridge and 12% higher on the Manhattan Bridge.

While the DOT has paid tribute to the bicycle boom in the first pandemic year, in which many commuters avoided mass transportation for fear of catching or spreading coronavirus, 2021 counts show a slight decline through August, according to the latest figures.
More people have returned to mass transit this year, with numbers reaching just over half of pre-pandemic levels on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s subway and nearly two-thirds on its buses, according to the latest MTA figures.
Gutman said the numbers could get a boost from the new dedicated Brooklyn Bridge bike lane, which opened on the inner Manhattan-bound car lane on Sept. 14 and replaced the tight boardwalk above that cyclists had to share with pedestrians and hordes of tourists.
“Let’s look at the numbers some time from now, after we’ve had the benefit of opening the Brooklyn Bridge, I think it’s a game changer,” Gutman said.
The new Brooklyn Bridge bike lane has already seen a boost in equestrianism, while counts of the other three spans across the East River have remained stable, according to another DOT official.
“We want to let this data settle down to make sure it’s not just a bunch of people trying it,” Sean Quinn said. “But more importantly, we have not seen falls from the other bridges, so it seems that it is actually encouraging a new riding ship, people who have not ridden before, just try it, they are switching to the bridge.”
The streets have been unusually dangerous for New Yorkers this year, with road deaths hitting an all-time high this summer compared to previous summers under Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, according to a study by security organizations.
Meanwhile, car traffic is almost completely back to pre-pandemic levels, according to analyzes of bridge and tunnel crossings, but Gutman said the city is a safe place for cyclists.
“It’s definitely safe to ride in New York City,” he said. “We have had unfortunate trends in some categories, but as far as cyclists are concerned, the numbers have moved in the right direction. That does not mean it is good enough, every death or serious injury is a tragedy, we are aware of what we are focusing on. ”