Meet the New Yorkers Fighting for NYC Bike Lanes

Today’s New York City streetscapes wouldn’t be complete without cyclists rushing to get to work, delivering food orders, or enjoying a leisurely ride. But with the Trump administration pausing federal grants for green infrastructure like bike lanes earlier this month, New Yorkers furiously advocating for cycling infrastructure aren’t backing down.

One of these such advocates is Charles McCorkell. After falling in love with cycling as an engineering student in the late 1960s, McCorkell noticed a lack of cycling infrastructure in New York City. In response, he founded Bike Habitat, a bike shop that promotes advocacy efforts to create bike infrastructure, including the Manhattan Bridge bike path. Today, Bike Habitat has three locations across New York and continues to advocate for safe cycling conditions. 

“We painted bike lanes on the street,” said McCorkell of his early days with Bike Habitat. “We got seven or eight of us. One person made sure the traffic didn't come hit us, and the rest would be out with some paint. It didn't hold up long, but it helped people see the possibility.”

When he wasn’t painting bike lanes onto New York City streets, McCorkell was busy protesting or asking for petition signatures. But not everyone was thrilled. “I remember getting spit on regularly by drivers. I got hit a couple of times by people driving too close to me,” he remembered. 

Despite the negative reactions McCorkell dealt with while advocating for cyclists, he’s glad he didn’t quit. “My satisfaction is that here we are today, and there are so many people on the street with bicycles,” he said. 

Others, perhaps inspired by McCorkell’s activism, further his cause today. The Brooklyn Greenway Initiative is one example of New Yorkers’ continued commitment to safe cycling infrastructure, which may be more important now than ever before. In the first nine months of 2024, New York City saw record highs of cyclists seriously injured or killed, according to Transportation Alternatives. 

The Initiative aims to increase access to safe outdoor pathways for cyclists and pedestrians by building 29 miles of greenway paths around Brooklyn’s shores, from Williamsburg to Howard Beach. As of yet, 22 miles of the greenway are complete. 

By making Brooklyn more accessible by bike, Hunter Armstrong, Executive Director of the Initiative, hopes these paths will address transit inefficiencies. “Waterfront communities in Brooklyn and other boroughs are not very well served by transit. The greenway is serving a transportation need in communities that are really underserved by community transportation,” he told Untapped New York. 

Armstrong also sees value in the Greenway for its recreational uses. “The Greenway is important for recreation: exercise, health, just pure enjoyment. New York was built on its waterways, and being able to get out and enjoy the sea breeze and get some exercise is a real incentive for people who live in New York.”

Much like McCorkell, Armstrong and the Initiative have faced obstacles. “The process from planning to implementation or to construction in New York City is incredibly slow. Unfortunately, it's very piecemeal and takes a lot of time.” 

But Armstrong remains committed, both personally and professionally, to the Brooklyn Greenway and all it has to offer. “I have been using the Greenway for 10-plus years to go see friends and run errands along the waterfront in Williamsburg. It's the quickest way to get over there on a bike, and it's also the most fun.”

Armstrong and McCorkell work to make modern-day cycling safer and more accessible, but the bicycle and New York City have a shared history that predates both of them. Evan Friss, Professor of History at James Madison University and author of On Bicycles: A 200 Year History of Cycling in New York City, referred to the 1890s as “the golden age of cycling.” 

“The bicycle was more popular in New York City than maybe anywhere else in the world. In cultural ways and in social ways, the bike was as important in New York as it is in Amsterdam or Copenhagen today,” said Friss of the late 19th century. 

Initially fashionable and chic, the bicycle came to be associated with the working class. “Many of the lead bicycle clubs and the people pushing for infrastructure abandoned the bike, and by the time the next sort of wave of enthusiasm comes around, there's not very much infrastructure to support it,” Friss explained.

New York City’s paved bike lanes were first built in 1978, but they weren’t practical. “They were mostly meant for recreational purposes and to kind of keep the bicycles off of the streets in this very pro-automobile kind of way,” said Friss. This car-centric outlook Friss described is the same one McCorkell encountered while battling with the city for cycling infrastructure. 

Things started to change in the 21st century when bike lanes began to be seen as “a much more permanent and durable part of the cityscape.” Friss, not surprisingly, is a devoted cycling himself. “I still think biking is the best way to see the city and appreciate the beauty and ugliness of it. And I think it's remarkably fun. There's a child-like joy that never really dissipates.”

For Friss, the association between cycling and joy is strong. Emily Stutts is helping youth form that association early on. Stutts leads the Bergen Bike Bus, an organization empowering kids and parents to cycle a “bus” route together on Wednesday mornings, dropping kids off at their respective schools along the way. 

In helping youth develop positive cycling memories, Stutts and the rest of the Bike Bus rely on paths that people like McCorkell and Armstrong helped develop. “We bike pretty much exclusively in the bike lanes, because we aim to build kids’ skills. So at the same time that we're advocating for better infrastructure that's more child-friendly and safer, we also want kids to build the skills they need to be safe and considerate road users,” said Stutts. 

While the Bike Bus helps kids get comfortable on bikes, it’s also focused on empowering kids to feel there is room for them to navigate the city. “It's definitely meant to be a child-centered experience, a way to foreground childhood in an urban setting. Because kids can't vote and don't work, decision-makers don't often prioritize kids in planning and development.”

To Stutts, the Bike Bus is not only a way for young people to connect with the city but also an opportunity to imagine a bike-centered New York. Each in their own way, Stutts, McCorkell, and Armstrong imagine a city that can be safely navigated by bike. With a record high of nearly 45,000 cyclists in Midtown Manhattan as of last year, it seems they’re not the only ones.

“I do think that the Bike Bus is such a powerful tool of community, not just in relationship building among people who participate,” said Stutts. “But it also allows people to envision a world that I think we've never seen.”

Next, check out The Kissena Velodrome in Flushing: New York’s Only Remaining Cycling Track