A quick note from the coverage that Streetsblog provided from last Thursday night's Community Board 2 meeting:
In a unanimous 9-0 vote last night, Manhattan Community Board 2′s transportation committee endorsed a DOT plan to upgrade a buffered bike lane on Lafayette Street and Fourth Avenue to a parking-protected lane, complete with new pedestrian islands, car lanes of an appropriate width for the city, and improved signal timing for pedestrians. The plan now moves to CB 2′s full board meeting on March 20.
The protected lane would run from Prince Street up to East 12th Street. The proposal would not remove any car lanes, but instead narrows them on the avenues, per Streetsblog.
Find a PDF of the proposal here. Read the whole Streetsblog post here.
How are we feeling about protected bike lanes these days? Anyone? Comments?
Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] Looking at the First Avenue's new bike lane and 'floating lane' (64 comments)
Protest planned for reconfigured Avenues (153 comments)
Great news. It's a route I take a lot, riding with my daughter in her bike seat. Soon (if hopefully the full CB will approve it on 3/20) we will be able to avoid all the speeding taxies and trucks who tend to speed next to us in order to get to the next red light
ReplyDeleteNot sure how they will account for the cab drivers and NJ bros who use the chevron painted buffer lanes as passing lanes. Maybe NYPD will start enforcing traffic laws? Ha ha, just kidding. More likely they will just ticket cyclists for something.
ReplyDeleteRelated, where will the dozen or so post office vehicles that either park illegally or hog all the parking on 11 th st and 4th ave go?
i really have to see that proposed island with the trees in it to believe it!
ReplyDeleteI-)
Yes please, moar protected bike lanes -- on Broadway, too, and on both sides of Union Square East (where there's currently a southbound bike lane that drops off into a dangerous mess at 14th Street, which, come to think of it, COULD ALSO USE SOME BIKE LANES!). PROTECTED BIKE LANES EVERYWHERE!!! Or at least, you know, on all the Avenues and nice wide arterial streets.
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ReplyDeleteGood news for car repair shops. Wider SUVs + smaller car lanes = more fender benders.
I still think they want to make driving such a bitch ("CONGESTED") to drive that people will love to pay for "congestion pricing" to alleviate the problems... that THE CITY IS CAUSING on purpose.
Totally against this. If bikers obeyed traffic laws as well as car drivers do, there would be no problem.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with bike lanes is that bicyclists think that the traffic laws or common sense do not apply to them. They think that the lanes are for them to be used exclusively that any pedestrians who are crossing for a millisecond or people getting in or out of cab or car are hindering in their righteousness. There will always be tourists or daft people or simply rude pedestrians that will be idling in the bike lanes whether beacuse they do not know any better or choose to not know any better. It only takes a millisecond to slightly swerve to avoid said people. A bicycle moving at a faster speed can avoid a slow moving or stationary pedestrian in their way. Instead, the bicyclists speed-up as if they're in Tour de France yelling or ringing that bell and just riding in a linear fashion. Before bike lanes, cars, bicycles, and pedestrians are sharing the lanes, thus the code or understanding and courtesy to each other. With the bike lanes, the mentality is it's all about the bicyclists, it's mine, it's me, me, meeeeeeee.
ReplyDeleteGod help older people trying to cross the avenues in NYC with these new lane layouts.
ReplyDeleteAs noted by Anonymous March 10th at 2:45pm, cyclists do not care to acknowledge that pedestrians have ANY rights - much less older, slower pedestrians who take longer to get across a street or avenue.
It comes down to the mind-set of former Mayor Bloomberg, who set the tone for what seems to be the mind-set of bicyclists as well: all privilege, no responsibility.
I'm a pedestrian and a cyclist and I think I see the issue pretty fairly from both sides.
ReplyDeleteYes, NYC has more than its fair share of assholes on bikes. From the pizza delivery guy riding the wrong way on a one way street up to an including the dumbass hipsters on their brakeless "fixies" who don't stop for lights - I have seen it all and it makes me cringe because I know that even when I'm riding safely (stopping for lights and avoiding walkers) I'm tarred with the same brush as Mr.Spandex douchebag who weaves in and out of cars and it a menace.
At the same time, I can't tell you how many people that have nearly caused accidents with bikes in the bike lane because they see the lane as an alternate sidewalk, which can only be traversed in the wrong direction (I think it must be a local rule on the 9th Ave bike lane) with your headphones in and music cranking! At that point the on only useful purpose for the bell is to hit the bastard in the head with it because he won't hear it. People step off the curb without looking and if I can I'll swerve to avoid but when you do it just as I'm passing in front of you, I don't have a lot of options.
There is a lot of bad behavior by all, more than enough to go around. But it makes no sense to penalize the majority because of the minority of bad apples.
The State is dying to put up license plate readers at every bridge and toll you for the bridges for which you've already paid and continue to do from your taxes. I'm sure the readers are already up recording and surveilling your movements. I find myself losing respect from self-described environmentalists who tell us we need to have tolls for the environment. Sure we do. Its Agenda 12 in action folks.
ReplyDeleteOne more pedestrian killed by an asshole in a car, just as I write this. But Yeah.. It's the cyclist who are the problem.
ReplyDeleteOh, right, Anon 2:45, before bike lanes everything was hunky dory and now it's all gone to shit? I'm sorry, but I walked and biked (and even drove once in awhile) both before and after bike lanes, and I can tell you that the streets are a million times less murderous for pedestrians and cyclists now than they were a few years ago. Traffic calming (including the lanes) has had a profound effect. Which doesn't mean there aren't still killer cars mowing people down with impunity.
ReplyDeleteOh, and people want to talk about entitlement? There is no road user that feels more entitled than the driver high up in his truck or his SUV, and unlike asshole cyclists, asshole motorists will kill you dead if they hit you.