UPDATE: The Pulaski Bridge bike path is open!

[Update: 4/29: The bike lane is now open!] Earlier this week, the DOT released its 2016 bike maps featuring 15 miles of new lanes in Brooklyn alone. Among the miles were included those promised to us long, long ago on the Pulaski bridge, which connects Brooklyn to Queens, from Greenpoint to Long Island City. No opening dates had yet been announced, but now we’ve got an exciting update for you from the office of Assemblyman Joe Lentol, whose district includes the Pulaski Bridge.

Lentol’s communications director, Edward Baker, told us that the bike path will be ready to ride by April 30th at the latest. “It could be done before then,” he added.

At this point, we’ve got a fool-me-twice mentality. We wanted to see the lane’s progress for ourselves, so one of our Brokelyn bike couriers (not Ilana Glazer, but we wish it was) went out to the bridge to snaps some pics of the path-in-progress and get additional intel from construction workers on-site. Verdict? Yeah, this thing might actually be ready in April. 

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In case you forgot, the buzz about a bike path on Pulaski bridge started in 2013, and was slated for completion in 2014. From there however, a series of false starts, design setbacks and idle rumors strung us along for the next two years while we waited with bated bikes for the chance to ride from Brooklyn to Queens without mowing over pedestrians on the sidewalk.

Here’s what we saw this morning: the partitions are fully built, separating pedestrian from bike and bike from vehicle. The path is only partially paved over with smooth asphalt — the majority of it is still roughly-poured. Entryways on either end of the path are still under construction. But all told, it looks pretty good!

We spoke to a construction worker who told us the same thing as Baker — that the path would be done by the end of April.

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“It’s mostly done,” the construction worker said. “Some of the smaller pieces we ordered are still on backorder, and decisions are still being made about whether the barrier will be open in this [he gestures to a point along the path where the overhead “Welcome to Brooklyn” ] spot. But the big pieces are all in place.”

If last month’s ode to Queens didn’t convince you, then let this bike path be your excuse to take a ride across the bridge. It seriously takes all of two minutes end-to-end, and we may as well make friends with our brethren to the north since they now share in our rent woes.

Follow Sam on her bike (not actually, that’s creepy dude, I meant on Twitter): @ahoysamantha

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