Upper East Side residents say they were blindsided by a slowdown in traffic lights that has turned Third Avenue into an e-bike “racetrack” and a “glacier” for drivers.
The Department of Transportation retimed its lights from 25 mph to 15 mph between 60th and 96th streets — with the local City Council member saying even she wasn’t given notice of the upheaval, which came with no community input.
“Bike riders are having a field day up here but this has done absolutely nothing to improve the lives of drivers,” said 54-year-old Upper East Sider Anthony La Russa.
“Third Avenue used to be every driver’s favorite avenue because of the way the lights were timed, but the city doesn’t know how to leave well enough alone,” La Russa added. “Now they’re forcing drivers to stay 10 miles below the speed limit, and all that’s doing is turning Third Avenue into a glacier – [but] for e-bikes, it’s no problem. They treat the roads like their own race track.”
The change comes after cyclist traffic increased 79% between October 2022 and October 2024, according to DOT data. But the traffic safety measure — part of a DOT plan called “green wave” — comes as unregulated e-bikes bring dangers of their own.
“Who’s enforcing the bike riders, the e-bike riders who go as fast as they want and go through red lights without getting ticketed?” delivery driver Kasper Overgaard, 43, said.
For drivers, it’s just another measure that’s making it more difficult to get around the city.
“Third Avenue used to be kind of our last option for a relatively smooth running thoroughfare, and it’s now not that anymore,” said Upper East Sider Len Genovese, a semi-retired tech worker.
“Now, slowing the lights to even slower than the speed limit – by treating this just as a very local road – they’ve made it almost impossible now to be an effective thoroughfare,” the 58-year-old added.
City Council member Julie Menin admitted the effort is “definitely going to slow traffic,” but said she was left in the dark until an article in the New York Times mentioned the change a week ago.
“We received no communication whatsoever about these very significant changes in traffic patterns on Third Avenue,” Menin told The Post, adding that her office has been “inundated” with concerns in the past week. She has since penned a letter to DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez demanding to know why the decision was made without community awareness.
“This is going to have real world impacts on the flow of traffic on Third Avenue – and so to do this without discussing this with the community and sharing with us what is the data that would support this decision is very troubling,” the council member said.
In an email to The Post, the DOT called the timing change a “minor adjustment” aimed at making “the street safer for pedestrians and more comfortable for cyclists and drivers by delivering more consecutive green lights most of the day.”
Preliminary data shows vehicular and bus traffic has been flowing without issue since the change was implemented, the DOT said.
Five crash deaths were reported on Third Avenue from 60th to 96th Street since 2020 to 2023, according to city data; there have been no deaths since the redesign of the boulevard in 2023, which brought a bike and bus lane to the section of the neighborhood.
“NYC DOT’s redesign of Third Avenue has significantly reduced serious injuries—whether you’re walking, biking, or in a car on the corridor—and this Green Wave builds on that work,” the rep added, “with traffic lights better timed to daytime speeds to help reduce red-light running among cyclists and overnight speeding among drivers.”
Cab driver Emmanuel Jeanty said the traffic change has made his job more difficult.
“[Third Avenue] used to be the fastest way to get uptown when there was traffic on the FDR,” the cabbie added. “Now it’s the slowest – just another thing they take away from us.
“It’s just another attack on drivers who earn their living by driving.”
