New York City, New York: City Will Redesign Deadly Third Avenue in Brooklyn, Cutting It From Six Lanes to Four

Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced on Wednesday that the city Department of Transportation will overhaul Third Avenue in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, one of the borough's most dangerous streets. The redesign covers 2.1 miles of the avenue, from 62nd Street to 20th Street, below the elevated Gowanus Expressway. Work starts next year.

"Seventeen people have lost their lives along this corridor in a decade," Mamdani said in a statement. "That cannot continue. Starting next year, we will transform Third Avenue to protect pedestrians, cyclists and drivers."

What will change on the avenue

Third Avenue now carries six to eight lanes of vehicle traffic, with parking lanes on both sides. Under the redesign, the roadway drops to four moving lanes for cars, and parking lanes on both sides stay. DOT plans double-wide 10-foot bike lanes on each side of the median, protected by a concrete barrier.

Pedestrian islands and curb extensions at intersections will cut the avenue's 150-foot crossing distance in half. The plan also adds a two-way, parking protected bike lane on 60th Street, between Second and Fourth Avenues.

DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn said Third Avenue can no longer wait. "Too many New Yorkers have lost their lives simply trying to navigate Brooklyn's Third Avenue," Flynn said in a statement. "After years of delays, this administration will complete a comprehensive redesign of one of Brooklyn's most dangerous streets." Road diets of this kind cut traffic deaths and serious injuries among all road users by 30 percent, according to city figures cited by Streetsblog.

The deaths behind the push

Over the last decade, 17 people have been killed in crashes along this stretch of Third Avenue, more than half of them pedestrians or cyclists, according to figures reported by Gothamist and cited by 6sqft. On August 29, a hit-and-run driver killed Jiayi Zheng, a 28-year-old nurse at NYU Langone Hospital, The driver has not been found and no arrests have been made. In 2025, two elderly pedestrians were killed by hit-and-run drivers on the avenue, and in 2020 a motorcyclist killed Clara Kang, another NYU Langone nurse, while she rode her bike.

Years of delay, then a local campaign

In 2024, under former Mayor Eric Adams, DOT proposed a redesign with curbside protected bike lanes, and the local community board supported it. The agency then effectively abandoned its own proposal over the following two years, after pushback from local business groups, primarily the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, Streetsblog reported.

Residents kept pressing this fall. More than 270 Sunset Park residents signed a public letter this month demanding safety improvements and a timeline, and on October 18 community members and elected officials held a safety walk from Martin Luther Playground to 60th Street, calling for better lighting, high-visibility crosswalks and curb extensions.

Council Member Alexa Aviles, who represents the area, welcomed the plan at Wednesday's press conference. "The redesign will start at the most problematic portion of the avenue, ensuring that local students and families will be able to cross the street with ease of mind," Aviles said. She added that the plan takes input from local business owners into account.

Schedule

The first phase targets the most dangerous section, between 62nd and 43rd Streets, starting next year. Work on the remaining stretch, from 43rd to 20th Streets, begins in 2028. Mamdani said the project sits inside his Vision Zero Reimagined plan, released last month, which sets 100 policy goals for the next decade with the aim of ending traffic deaths in the city.