Everyday 3,000 people bike or walk across the Williamsburg Bridge. Last Monday morning, the people who keep track of such numbers, the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, were handing out free coffee and bagels to those commuters on the Manhattan side.The breakfast spread was a celebration of recently completed work by the New York City Department of Transportation to smooth out 26 bumps along the foot and bike path. Those two-inch bumps were metal coverings of bridge joints, and had already caused dozens of bikers to crash, breaking bones and tearing skin."One guy had a hematoma in his stomach the size of your head," said Amanda Hickman in between sips of coffee. Hickman wrote several letters to the DOT this year about the problem. The DOT's initial response, she recalled, was to say, "You'll be pleased to know we painted them yellow."Hickman told the DOT they were "insane" if they thought that was enough. Their next step was to post signs with arrows supposedly demonstrating the right and wrong ways to travel over the bumps. (Right way: straight ahead, wrong way: at an angle.) This tactic Hickman referred to as "preposterous" and eventually the DOT got the message (all those lawsuits might have helped) and got rid of the bumps altogether.To do so they had to hire an engineering consultant, Weidlinger Associates, who began studying the problem back in March. In September work crews began installing the new joints, and now the only ones left to replace are on the path's northern fork, which is currently closed.On the snowy morning of Transportation Alternatives' breakfast, there was a work crew on the northern side, ironing out the last of the bumps. "Every joint is different," explained one of the orange vested laborers. "There's no one way to do it. You have to remember that the width of the gap is always changing with the temperature."The temperature that day was quite cold, and the two-wheeled morning commuters had to contend with quite a bit of ice on the open half of the path. But the breakfast revelers noticed no injuries, and most of the travelers zipped by the free coffee. "They all have to get to work," shrugged Noah Budnick, project director for Transportation Alternatives.As for all that ice, there was another DOT crew on the Brooklyn side of the bridge. "We're waiting for the plow," they explained. "It came through yesterday, but right now it's over at the Brooklyn Bridge."It seems that the Williamsburg Bridge never gets anything first. But at least the footpath is open (only since 2002), at least it's smooth (finally), and, hey, that plow is on the way, we promise. Simon and Garfunkel will write a song about it, too, just as soon as they become young again.