Monday, April 15, 2019

Making the case for 2-way bike lanes on Avenue B



A movement is underway to secure two-way bike lanes on Avenue B, an increasingly congested 14-block corridor currently without any marked paths for cyclists such as on Avenue A and Avenue C.

The awareness campaign commenced along the Avenue this past Friday...


The idea came about via parents who bike their children to area schools — including the East Village Community School, the Children's Workshop School, Tompkins Square Middle School, the Earth School and East Side Community High School.

After presenting the idea to, and receiving support from, the East Village Community School Parent Association, East Village resident and parent Choresh Wald approached Transportation Alternatives, who has endorsed the proposal and is helping spread the word via #BikeAveB on social media.


There's now a petition in circulation, which you can find here.

Per the petition, which is signed by Wald:

A historical source of Alphabet City's fight for tenants rights and neighborhood empowerment, Avenue B today is a vibrant 14-block stretch in the East Village that is lined with schools, cultural institutions and community gardens. Tompkins Square Park, the adjacent libraries and burgeoning night life combine to make Avenue B an increasingly busy corridor for people on foot and on two wheels.

Despite being a narrow avenue, Avenue B allows two-way travel for cars, but has no dedicated lanes for anybody who wants to ride a bicycle. Yet parents and neighbors alike are already choosing to ride down this unsafe corridor.

To make the problem worse, trucks and commercial vehicles have no curbside loading zones. Every day we see them double-parking in order to make deliveries to the dozens of small businesses along Avenue B.


[EVG photo]

We need a safe, two-way protected bike lane on Avenue B, complete with pedestrian safety improvements!

The closure of the East River bike path as part of the upcoming East River Coastal Resiliency plan adds real urgency to the situation. The loss of the East River Greenway park facilities for several years will increase demand to transform Avenue B into a street that can be safer for all users.

By local law, our youngest New Yorkers are allowed to ride on the sidewalk until they are 14 years old. But some of us can't afford to allow them to bike independently given the current conditions of our streets. Community Board 3, we need your help! When our daughters and sons turn 14 years old they will need a safe place to bike on Avenue B.

We've heard from several residents in recent months about an increase in traffic from commercial vehicles in part due to the arrival of Target last summer on 14th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B (at least one other big-box store is expected in the retail space below the newish residential building EVGB) ...


[EVG photo from February]

... and the ongoing presence of the private trash-truck operators making the early-morning rounds...





Wald and other parents plan to meet with City Councilmember Carlina Rivera's office in the next few weeks to share their proposal. Wald also hopes to present the plan to Community Board 3 early this summer.

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes!

noble neolani said...

hmm I'm all for bike lanes but if there were ever was an example of a street which it too narrow to accommodate one it it Avenue B. Unlike cross streets Ave B is filled with restaurants, bars and other businesses which receive deliveries from trucks almost daily. I've see traffic flow come to a stop many time whenever a delivery is being made, now squeeze in a bike lane and be prepared for car horns and chaos. If you live on B your life will change and not for the better. Ave C would be ideal for a bike lane but I can't get behind Ave B.

Anonymous said...

LICENSE AND ENFORCE and everyone will be SAFE!

Anonymous said...

Agreed 9:08 — I wish the NYPD would do a better job of enforcing the reckless drivers and unlicensed trash haulers who put pedestrians and cyclists at risk daily.

Noble — Avenue C has marked bike lanes already (they could use a fresh coat of paint)

KEH said...

Two-way protected lanes work ok in places like Chrystie Street with limited crossing, but poorly going up short blocks. After 25 years of commuting by bike in the city, I've grown tired of them letting TA largely initiate and structure the multitude of bike lane set-ups and leaving cyclists to homestead the hodge-podge of lane styles which leave riders, pedestrians, and drivers confused.

Anonymous said...

They'd probably have to switch B to one-way to make room.

Gojira said...

Avenues A and C, both wide, open expanses, have bike lanes. Avenue B, a cramped, narrow corridor, is already tight enough without the addition of two of them - if they were added it would essentially be down to the width of one car. And how is traffic supposed to move then? If parents want to bike their kids to school let them use A or C until they get to the needed side street and then head up or down to B on it. What's so radical about that?

Brian Van said...

Obviously there's not a lot of room on Avenue B right now, but if you take away curbside parking then there's suddenly plenty of room for loading zones and bicycle lanes.

I bet any measurement of the parking usage on Avenue B and its connecting streets would show that 80% of it is long-term private car storage for vehicles that move once a day or less. I would convert some of the parking on the side streets to metered zones to make up for the losses on the Avenue to loading zones.

As for bike lanes, pick your poison: either make Ave B a street with a very slow speed limit and local deliveries only (no large trucks, no thru traffic), or keep the same regulations with loading zones on one side and a 2-way curb-or-bollard-protected cycletrack on the other. Either change would likely be an upgrade for the average neighborhood resident (though an inconvenience for the not-many who own cars and aren't interested in garaging it)

Anonymous said...

Plenty of people in our neighborhood own cars.

Anonymous said...

Just eliminate all trucks - no deliveries EVER, no trash hauling or sanitation pickups EVER, and you're good to go!

Anonymous said...

There’s plenty of room on B if we remove personal car parking. Agree we need more loading zones for businesses both on the Ave and on ends of side streets. There are over 1500 school children who go to school with 1/2 block of Avenue B. The bike lane needs to go there for children to get to school safely.

Anonymous said...

Ave C has bike lanes but they are often truck delivery lanes and there is a choke point just north of Houston where the avenue narrows. As mentioned above the trade off would be losing parking spaces permanently, though I doubt the political will is there. The irony is two car families complaining about lack of bike lanes.

Anonymous said...

Love this! Circulated the petition amongst some friends.

Anonymous said...

END FREE CAR STORAGE on NYC streets! There's no reason we should sacrifice the safety of all road users in order to subsidize a small, entitled-ass class of car drivers. Covert one lane of parking to bike lanes and another to loading/delivery. Problem solved. Traffic calmed. Everybody better off (except for the poor car owners!).

Anonymous said...

It’s so sad that you think owning a car makes you entitled and upper class. Enjoy living in squalor

Giovanni said...

Not every street and avenue needs a bike lane. Avenue B is too narrow, and there’s not much traffic to compete with. I actually prefer riding on Avenue B now more than on avenues with the bike lanes. It reminds me of the old days when we had no bike lanes, and only experienced cyclists rode in the street, pedestrians didn’t blindly wander into the steet while looking down at their cellphone ever 10 feet, and there are fewer speeding electric bikes to deal with too.

While we’re at it, how about adding bike lanes on the FDR Drive? Electric bikes already go faster than normal traffic on the avenues, so let’s see if they can keep up with speeding cars careening up and down the FDR (aka the Fools Die Regularly) drive. Of course since Citibike just pulled all of their defective (and slowly charging) electric bikes off the street, the regular frantic Citibike peddlers will really need to step up their game.

cmarrtyy said...

B is too narrow. Riders only have to go to A or C to go up or down. What's the difference... the rider isn't walking. But then again riders do what they want to do... don't they. Bad idea, Very bad idea...

Anonymous said...

@Giovanni - why should biking just be for "experienced cyclists" with nerves of steel? Where do parents ride slowly when they are carrying a 50 pound child? Let's create some space for children to get on bikes and learn too.

If there's not much car traffic on B it's a great place to reduce parking or a travel lane to make room for people to walk and bike. Let's put some more "village" here, otherwise it's just the East Side.

Anonymous said...

@Giovanni - I know what you mean about the old days of no bike lanes but on margin I like the bike lanes because I can just cruise on the avenues without running traffic gauntlets every couple of blocks. I still know how but it's nice to have the option of a relaxing bike ride.

And B is too small unless parking is removed, and politically there's as much a chance of that as Zombie Ed Koch(tm) showing up in Iowa running for President.

Anonymous said...

Jesus... people are so needy and obnoxious now. I love biking in the city and do almost daily - but I would not expect a bike lane on a narrow avenue like Avenue B. There are already two way lanes on Ave A and C. Residents who don't own cars also need spots sometimes, eliminating all of those spots would make more traffic. Just stop.
If you feel the need to ride and feel unsafe on B use A or C, what's the big deal?
Let things roll as they have been and fix bigger issues.

Anonymous said...

LOL @ "free car storage" above. WTF are you talking about? It's the side of the street - where else would cars park? Stop with the asinine one sided shit. Everyone needs cars at some point.

Giovanni said...

I’m not saying all streets should be for experienced cyclists. I use bike lanes like everyone else. As an almost daily cyclist, I’m sayng not all streets need to be totally redesigned for cyclists. As a matter of fact, it takes more skill riding up the 1st Avenue bike lane at rush hour and at night than it does riding up and down Avenue B, which is like a nice sleepy backwater street without the hassles and dangers inherent to the bike lanes. It’s nice to have a few normal streets left, and ntot all streets need or benefit from the addition of a bike lane.

Anonymous said...

Why don't we repave with cobblestones? I say this in 100% seriousness, hear me out:

Cobblestone streets slow down both vehicle and cycle traffic, and result in a safer speed for mixing traffic. Pedestrians prefer sidewalks greatly over cobblestones, and linger in crosswalks less. Cobblestones are much more durable, and the maintenance is more manual, but less disgusting overall than asphalt repaving (more skilled labor == better jobs).

Why should we encourage cyclists, especially on electric bikes, to go as fast as vehicle traffic? The safest thing to do is slow down all traffic. Full disclosure, I drive/park in the neighborhood multiple times a week, and am a pedestrian that is offended by entitled cyclist behavior (stopping in crosswalks, running red lights, going the wrong way, not using bike lanes even when they're unobstructed) on a daily basis.

Charles said...

For the record, I'm a life long (before it became trendy) NYC bicyclist. There is not enough space to put in all these protected bike lanes. Too much wasted space inherent in their placement. Example: look at the 'no standing' zones, wasting space on 13th street between ave A and 4th ave.
Arrogant wasteful planning.

Dave said...

i'm fine with B being a single lane one-way with a parking-protected bicycle lane on one side

Anonymous said...

Too much free parking here IMO. It's very 20th century. Yet our current population has exceeded 20th century levels.

pr said...

> eliminating all of those spots would make more traffic

how would that work?

> It's the side of the street - where else would cars park?

garages? car ownership shouldn't be subsidized by the public

Anonymous said...

Hi @pr...
I think what they meant by more traffic is, cars will be looking for parking so they will be circling and that sucks for pedestrians and residents, other drivers, and the parker.

I don't know what you mean subsidized by the public - they aren't being given money.
Taxes etc. go to fixing roadways. Including tickets and registration fees and other zones that charge for parking, tolls, etc.
The side of the road is just - the side of the road.
We are nickeled and dimed enough as it is.

I personally wouldn't want to deal with a car in the city but if it makes sense for someone I don't consider parking on the side of a road "subsidizing"! That sounds wildly extreme.

Anonymous said...

The average 15 year old does not bike to school. They are getting high and thinking about how to get laid while they walk to school with their friends. This war on cars is absurd. No one drives in Manhattan unless it is a necessity. Some drivers are a problem as are reckless bikers and skateboarders. The radicalness that this has become is why Trump will be elected for a second term. To use an Elmer Fudd analogy, it's like going after the rabbit with an elephant gun. Yes, there's is often a lot of traffic and it's annoying. Adding bike lanes will only increase this. People do not go for a joy ride in Manhattan for the fun of it. They do it because it's a necessity.