After a pause, advocates watch for Third Avenue safety upgrades

Leonardo March

After a pause, advocates watch for Third Avenue safety upgrades
The south-facing corner at Third Avenue and 52nd Street, where Kexun Chen and Faqiu Lin were killed in a July 2025 crash. Photo by Leonardo March

Early last year, New York City’s Department of Transportation (DOT) appeared close to starting long-awaited safety improvements on Third Avenue in Sunset Park.

Very close. The measures had been approved by Community Board 7, which includes Sunset Park, and were expected to be implemented over the summer, according to Jeremy Laufer, the board’s retiring district manager.

Then came March 2025, when Laufer shared a DOT message saying the community “should not expect to hear from them in 2025,” and that there would be no action or added safety measures on Third Avenue in 2025.

According to the message Laufer read, DOT said it was pausing the “promised” improvements in order to do more community outreach, and that the agency would “reach back out in 2026.”

But Streetsblog NYC, a digital outlet that covers transportation, reported that the pause was driven by complaints from business groups. Those groups argued that removing a travel lane, as proposed in the board-approved “road diet” option, would hurt local businesses.

A year later, advocates in Brooklyn continue to criticize the reasons behind the pause.

“Business interests should never come before public safety,” said Rose Uscianowski, a Transportation Alternatives organizer for Staten Island and South Brooklyn. “But we saw that happen far too often under the Adams administration.”

Now that 2026 has arrived, with a new administration in office, some are optimistic that Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s DOT could move forward with Third Avenue safety improvements.

Hope in the new administration

As chair of Community Board 7’s transportation committee, Katherine Walsh works directly on issues related to Third Avenue. The Sunset Park urban planner said she believes the new administration has already shown a commitment to traffic safety.

“That gives me a lot of hope that they’ll pay attention to this critical Third Avenue corridor in Sunset Park,” Walsh added.

On Feb. 13, Mayor Mamdani announced the city would restart several bus and bike lane projects in Brooklyn and the Bronx that had been halted under the Adams administration.

During the press conference, the mayor highlighted adding protected bike lanes on a notoriously dangerous stretch of Ashland Place in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, between Hanson Place and Lafayette Avenue.

“It will be the final missing piece in what will soon be a continuous, protected bike route from Sunset Park to Dumbo,” the mayor said.

Third Avenue was not mentioned at the press conference, but the decision to restart projects paused by the previous administration has helped fuel optimism among some cycling and street-safety advocates.

“Yeah, I do feel hopeful with the new administration,” said Duncan Standish, a Bay Ridge resident, before crossing Third Avenue on his bike. “Mamdani seems a bit more supportive of cyclists, or at least supportive of bike infrastructure,” added the 35-year-old software engineer.

For her part, Uscianowski said, “We look forward to working with the Mamdani administration to finally bring safety to Third Avenue in Sunset Park.”

Small signs of change

As of publication, NYC DOT has not provided an update on the “road diet” plan. In an emailed statement, an NYC DOT spokesperson said the agency is “exploring safety improvements on the corridor” and is close to completing a major cycling upgrade that would add new off-street bike lanes along parts of Hamilton Avenue and Third Avenue.

“These things take a long time, so I don’t expect anything to happen soon,” Standish said. “But I’m not going anywhere, so I can wait.”

In February, Community Board 7 sent a letter to DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn requesting a meeting “to learn DOT’s plans for Third Avenue, including a timeline with a start date, as well as its strategy to improve communication with this city agency.”

According to Walsh, DOT responded promptly, saying it would meet soon to discuss next steps.

“This is encouraging,” Walsh wrote in an email. “In the past, weeks or months could go by, or there was no communication at all from DOT, when we sent a letter like this.”