For decades, the strip of 31st Street between the N/W columns and the sidewalk didn't follow consistent rules. Delivery trucks loaded wherever they could find room, and one food truck parked flush against the curb on the same corner for nearly 50 years. In its April 2026 presentation to Queens Community Board 1, the city's Department of Transportation called it "ambiguous space between column and curb with inconsistent curb regulations."
That space is no longer ambiguous. Since May, the stretch from Northern Boulevard to Newtown Avenue has parking-protected bike lanes on both sides. The bike lane gets the headlines. For anyone who drives, parks, gets deliveries, or picks up lunch on 31st Street, the bigger change is that nearly every foot of curb now has a specific job. Almost every complaint and every workaround since spring comes back to one question: is the job clearly marked, and is the space actually kept clear for it?
What the street looked like before
DOT's own baseline makes the change easy to measure. 31st Street is 60 feet wide. It had one travel lane in each direction under the elevated tracks, and capital bus bulbs at 39th Avenue, 36th Avenue and Broadway that date to 2017. North of Ditmars Boulevard, the street had extra-wide travel lanes, with angled parking on one curb and parallel parking on the other.
DOT also counted 502 reported traffic injuries from crashes on 31st Street between 2021 and 2025, plus two pedestrian fatalities, as Streetsblog reported in July. Much of the redesign is aimed at the double parking DOT identified as the corridor's main loading problem, where trucks and cars stopped in the travel lane because the curb had no space set aside for them.
The curb, block by block, by function
Today, the layout from the sidewalk out is the curb, then the bike lane, then a lane of parked or loading vehicles, then one travel lane each way under the tracks. The parking lane is divided into the uses DOT described in its April 16 announcement and its community board presentation:
| Curb use | What it's for | Detail DOT published |
|---|---|---|
| Truck loading zones | Business deliveries and pickups | 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. |
| Two-hour metered parking | Short visits, customer turnover | Expanded from prior meters |
| Neighborhood loading zones | Package deliveries, loading and unloading personal vehicles | Separate from truck zones |
| Taxi and for-hire zones | Quick pickups and drop-offs | Designated spots |
| School loading zones | Clearing the curb for student drop-off | Marked on the corridor |
Putting a use on every space has a cost. DOT estimated that across the full corridor it proposed, running from Northern Boulevard to 20th Avenue, the plan would net out about 169 parking spaces, roughly 20 percent of the spaces available on the street. So about one in five spots goes away. The spaces that remain are meant to turn over faster and serve more specific purposes.
The redesign also adds concrete pedestrian islands to shorten crossings and traffic signals for cyclists. DOT said it consulted 150 businesses along the way, according to NY1. "It's not just a bike lane," DOT official Joe Patti told the community board in April. "It's a safety treatment."
The corner where the change is easiest to see
At 31st Street and 31st Avenue, King Souvlaki shows the new layout better than any diagram. The Tsampas family has run its food truck at that intersection since 1979. After the redesign, the truck moved only a few feet. It now sits in the metered parking lane, separated from the curb by the bike lane and a narrow painted buffer, where it used to sit flush against the curb, Streetsblog reported.
"It's a good setup and we get to stay in the spot we've been at since 1979," Lampros Tsampas told Streetsblog. "It's a great bike lane, I like it." He said his family's real concern had always been whether the truck could keep operating at the spot his father, Konstantinos, built the business on. Today the truck has caution-style signs facing the lane that tell passing riders, "Slow down and grab a gyro!"
The order matters for anyone eating there. Customers now step off the curb, cross the bike lane and order at a truck parked in what's technically the parking lane. One customer told Streetsblog that most people know not to stand in the lane and that the space is "spacious enough."
The same corner hosted the August 2 ride marking completion of the first section. More than 100 cyclists joined State Sen. Kristen Gonzalez, Council Member Tiffany Cabán, Transportation Alternatives, NYC Bike and Brew and the 31st Avenue Open Streets Collective, according to Streetsblog.
Where the curb is still causing friction
A curb with assigned uses only works when those uses are respected, and that's where business owners have pushed back. NY1 reported in August that DOT had installed the loading zones and added metered parking, but owners said those zones were often blocked, driveways included, because the curb markings weren't clear.
Anthony Gulino, owner of Triboro Iron Works, told NY1 about double-parked cars, trucks parked for deliveries, and drivers "trying to crisscross over" between the two sides of the lane. Anthony Koulizakis of Z.A. & D. Service Station said the congestion made it harder to test-drive cars.
Cyclists have a different experience of the same street. "It just makes me feel safer in my own neighborhood biking around," John Bezemes told NY1.
The two accounts describe different parts of the same layout. The bike lane is separated from traffic by parked cars, and the merchants' complaints are mostly about the parking-and-loading lane that does the separating: who stops there, for how long, and whether the paint tells them they shouldn't. That lane is the one drivers deal with every day, so it's where the redesign gets tested hardest.
How this version came to be
The current layout is the second attempt. In December 2025, a Queens judge ruled against an earlier plan over concerns about FDNY fire response. The city filed a notice of appeal, which automatically put that decision on hold. DOT committed in January 2026 to restart the redesign, and this time the FDNY signed off. NY1 reported that the new plan leaves more room around hydrants and more space for fire apparatus to operate, including use of the bike lane. In other words, the hydrant clearances you see now are part of the reason this version was approved.
The dates that will shape what comes next
The street you use today isn't final. These are the pending and scheduled changes, in order:
- The court case. The 31st Street Business, Parents and Residents Association filed an Article 78 petition against the city and DOT on July 15, 2026, before Queens Supreme Court Justice Cheree A. Buggs. The court docket shows the September 28 return date adjourned, a motion to dismiss filed October 7, and a further court date on October 19. The association's lawyer, Hartley Bernstein, told NY1 that the new plan "covers more of the street" than the original.
- 31st Avenue, Steinway Street to 51st Street. In early August, crews were repaving 31st Avenue east of Steinway. The city's May 14 announcement said Phase 2 would begin later in 2026, with a parking-protected two-way bike lane from Steinway to 51st Street. According to Streetsblog, the plan makes car traffic one-way eastbound from Steinway to the 43rd Street and Newtown Avenue junction and one-way westbound from there to 51st Street, with a circular diverter at that junction. DOT's current projects page still lists it as proposed.
- 31st Street, Newtown Avenue to 20th Avenue. DOT said in a court filing that it doesn't plan to install the northern stretch until 2027. That section runs past Ditmars Boulevard, where the street currently has angled parking on one side. Expect the biggest change in curb use there.
If your errands take you up 31st Street toward Ditmars, or along 31st Avenue into Woodside, the curb you know today will probably look different by this time next year.
I keep track of changes like these because they shape how a block actually works day to day, and that matters whether you're settled in Astoria or deciding where in Queens to plant roots. If you'd like a local perspective on how street-level changes like these factor into a home decision, Rachel Borut is glad to talk it through. Schedule a consultation.
