Queensboro Bridge Pedestrian Path Delayed by Mayor Adams “Briefing”
This most recent delay is just one in a long line of postponements and delays in opening the long-awaited pedestrian pathway. Officially, due to “a full briefing” being needed by Mayor Adams, some believe the delay is benign, while others believe something more “sinister” is at play.
| 17 Mar 2025 | 04:25
On Sunday, the long-awaited pedestrian path improvements across the Queensboro Bridge were once again delayed, this time due Mayor Adams needing to be “briefed” on the project. (
)
Proponents of the southside pedestrian pathway have protested the delays alongside local council members, such as in October 2024. The north side pedestrian pathway can be seen in the bottom of the photo. (
)
Seen from Roosevelt Island, the Queensboro Bridge gets around 3,000 pedestrians crossing it daily, using the existing pedestrian path on the north side of the bridge. (
)
Long-awaited pedestrian path additions and improvements across the Queensboro Bridge have been put on hold just before it was set to open on Sunday, March 16. An eleventh-hour decision from City Hall has put a delay on the opening, an event already rife with years of delays, even as nearly 3,000 people cross over the bridge on foot daily.
According to Amaris Cockfield, a spokesperson at City Hall, Mayor Eric Adams “requires a full briefing” of the project, the south outer roadway, before the pedestrian lane can go into effect.
The news leaked to a page on Reddit, r/MicromobilityNYC, by way of a user named MiserNYC, who at one point last year was banned from reddit, but now seems to be reactivated. In a post on Sunday, March 16, he posted a video in which he theorized that the decision had “sinister” undertones behind the postponement of the project.
“There is a chance this was some benign action because he wanted to be in the photo op and the ribbon cutting, but given his very public past history of cancelling projects, particularly with cars, and the fact that he simply does not show up at lot of these ribbon cuttings, I kind of doubt this hypothesis,” MiserNYC posted.
“I think there is something a lot more sinister going on here, because as we all know, Adams is now a puppet at the mercy of Donald Trump,” he said. The reference, of course is to the ongoing controversy surrounding the Trump Justice Department asking a judge to dismiss the five count criminal indictment against Adams in order to allow the mayor to help in the Administrations crackdown on migrants.
Other posters on the site claim Adams simply wants to court drivers’ votes instead of pedestrians.
A spokesperson for the Mayor pushed back. ”Nothing has been delayed, and anyone saying otherwise is either lying or lacks a basic understanding of how city government works,” Cockfield told StreetsBlog NYC. “This is a massive project proposed by the previous administration, and since it will impact the commutes of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers across two boroughs, Mayor Adams requires a full briefing on how the Department of Transportation plans to roll this out smoothly and ensure New Yorkers can continue to get to where they need to go efficiently.”
Cockfield is certainly right about the scale of the project in terms of time. Tabled since at least 2020, the pedestrian path on Queensboro Bridge South Outer Roadway, which has been used by auto traffic, was first promised by the administration of former Mayor di Blasio. A rally calling for the path was held in May of the following year. Former 5th District Council Member Benjamin Kallos supported the pedestrian path and was open to funding construction equipment alongside former 26th District Council Member Jimmy van Bramer.
For four years, things stalled. Then, in a community board presentation from the New York City Department of Transportation from April 2024, the DOT claimed that the South Outer Roadway would be converted to accommodate pedestrians following “completion of current bridge repairs.”
The DOT proposed creating “a pedestrian network that is accessible, safe, and convenient” on the bridge as well as adding foot traffic access points to the bridge. A proposed opening of the improved path was slated to occur in the late summer of 2024.
That opening never came about, and in September, another delay was announced. The DOT chalked it up to being due to damage to a panel on the upper vehicle roadway on the bridge. The damage to the panel set things back by months, with another date for the opening of the new pedestrian path to be in the winter of 2025.
A month following the announcement, a public rally was held on the bridge, led by New York City politicians and advocates, including Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, (who is also running for mayor) van Bramer’s successor, Julie Won, and State Senator Jessica Ramos.
“Mayor Adams, don’t wait for the next mayor to have to do this. This is an easy win you can walk away with,” said Ramos at the rally. “Make sure that our Queensboro Bridge, or 59th Street Bridge, is safe for all users.”
At the time of writing, there is no word yet as to a new opening date. During Adams’ weekly press conference on March 17, the topic of the delay was not brought up and Mayor Adams did not address the delay in his remarks.