Queens-Manhattan Bike Bridge

Should New York City build bridges for only bikers and pedestrians to help facilitate human-powered, physically-distanced transportation? At only twenty feet wide, the Queens Ribbon bridge (above) would connect Midtown Manhattan and Queens, making it the first bridge in New York City devoted to cyclists and pedestrians.

Cycling in NYC has continued to grow and with the expansion of Citi Bike and plans to build more bike lanes, infrastructure is needed to provide efficient connections for bikers and pedestrians in the way the many bridges and tunnels do for automobiles. The last decade alone saw a 132% increase in East River bridge crossings.

The Queens Ribbon is a collaboration between NYU Tandon School of Engineering, T.Y. Lin International, and Sam Schwartz. If built it would be the first new bridge to Manhattan’s central business district in over a century. The team is also working on two additional bike-pedestrian bridges connecting Manhattan with Hoboken and Brooklyn.