What’s needed are counter-signs:

UPSET ABOUT THE CAR LANES?
Afraid to walk or even be close to the curb? Can’t breathe?
Afraid to cross the street?

THE DANGER & CONGESTION CAUSED BY THESE LANES MUST BE STOPPED!

Can someone please put these up?

How can the danger to pedestrians possibly be greater now witht he bike path than it was when everyone was complaining that the cyclists were using the sidewalk alongside the park?

I live in a city entirely without bike lanes. If this were my city, I’d be pissed, but this kind of made me laugh. A lot.
BIKE LANES! ENDANGERING CARS DAILY!

I took the PPW lane this past weekend. Seeing it through human eyes, I would certainly say that yes, a substantial portion of cyclists are not conducting themselves properly. Considering that this type of infrastructure is quite new to our city, and North America in general, is it really surprising that we need something of an adjustment period? Sounds like a job for education, enforcement, and patience from all parties.

But that’s through human eyes. Lord only knows what it looks like through the windshield…

I think the “garden area” refers to an area just inside Prospect Park, between Litchfield Villa (park headquarters) and PPW.

Here’s an argument you can expect at the meeting, taken from last night’s WPIX windshield perspective propaganda piece: The buffered, traffic-calming bike lane is “an accident waiting to happen”!

… as opposed to the 23 car-pedestrian and car-bike “accidents” that actually DID happen between 1995 and 2005 on PPW, according to CrashStat.

If these drivers in PPW cannot safely park and exit their vehicles on a street less than three lanes wide, then they probably should not be behind the wheel at all.

“The design calms bike traffic, and sends a strong signal that peds have priority at the crossing. Any thoughts?”

DOT installed flashing yellows next to the bike lanes, but they are too high to be seen and won’t deter jerks.

I suggest speed bumps on the bike path at both sides of the pedestrian crossings. There aren’t many such crossings, and they wouldn’t present a problem for someone cruising at 15 mph or less and slowing into ped areas.

And just to add to the idea of who should be there, how about a broken white line down the center of the bike lane, indicating the lane is two-way?

I wonder if Marty Markowitz is making these fliers himself as a last resort.

In defense of DOT, the marking are not all in place yet. In fact, hardly any are. However, the flashing yellows are too high and would make more sense flashing only when pedestrian’s have a walk signal. As they stand now they are too easy to miss/ignore.

That said, those complaining about being afraid to open their car doors are outrageous. Before the bike lane was in place, opening a car door posed a not insubstantial risk of knocking a bicyclist in front of a speeding car or under a bus.

“The parking is hell in no-Park Slope, but it is because of all the other car owners, not bike lanes.”

Isn’t that the point? Less parking = less convenient to drive = less cars = more livable city YAY!

The markings are not nearly complete yet. I’m for allowing DOT to finish their work before criticizing it.

The flyers are being created by a woman whom I encountered at DOT’s April 29th presentation on PPW and Grand Army Plaza at the Brooklyn Central Library — wish I’d gotten her name. She made a big deal about the “dangers” of getting in and out of a parked car with kids in tow when bicycles are whizzing about.

Well I did stop by. As a social scientist I had guessed around 25 people, mostly over 50, but in fact it was 26 people mostly over 50, although a couple said they weren’t opposed. Still, it was up to my estimate, if not over.

They had an honest debate as to whether anyone in favor of the bike lane should be allowed to say anything. As opposed to most meetings public organized by the city, where the pretense is you get to say anything but the officials get to talk for four hours before you get a chance, and then the people you came to speak with leave.

There were a couple of guys from NYU with a camera and microphone who ask me to state why I was in favor, which I did and left.

I’d say about on-third percent of those there were of the “us good tribe vs. them evil trade” type. They had a certain idea what those bikers are like, and based on the description I don’t exist.

The rest seem to believe that bicycles are the reason it is hard to have a car in New York City, rather than other cars — although 22 spaces lost does mean the last 22 people who now show up have a problem. But if 22 more affluent folks with cars replace 22 more seniors who don’t drive in area housing, they’d have the same problem, and in fact that has been happening.

Some believe bicycles can ride against traffic in Prospect Park, making the lane redundant. Others seem to find the bike lane aesthetically unpleasing. And there were complaints about massive traffic jams with free flowing traffic visible a few yards away.

Brad- You should give the above poster a regular column.

My favorite argument against bike lanes is that they are “aesthetically unpleasing.”

But 100 cars parked on a street, some of them total clunkers, really adds to the charm of a historic neighborhood such as Park Slope, doesn’t it?

Aaron, please make those flyers. I’ll help you put them up.

Lots of people are crossing PPW at the top of blocks that don’t have crosswalks and entrances to the park. These pedestrians come from between cars into the bike lane; neither safe nor responsible behavior. We need a solution.

The lights do need to be lowered in order to be seen (and perhaps an image of a bike in them something like a walk sign since they are new and unfamiliar to many), and Parks prune the trees covering them. Heck, TA’s bike parking signs are hung at the perfect height for someone on a bike to take note.

I decided to try it out last night. The lane is not even close to being completed. There is green paint for only a few blocks at the northern end and 2 or 3 of those blocks are closed off for the paint to dry. Crosswalk markings are in, however, but no bicycle lane markings. Drivers are parking their cars in between crosswalks at intersections where they will not be allowed once the project is complete. It is crazy that people can decidedly call the bicycle path a failure before it has even been installed.

Steve, first, I want to thank you for your generally well-thought-out and clearly reasoned post. While I don’t agree with most of what you wrote, I respect your opinion and that you’ve ventured here to post it.

I do have a few questions I’d like to ask you about your reasoning:

1. Why do you think Prospect Park is an adequate substitute for local trips around the neighborhood? There are bike-accessible entrances only at Union/GAP, 3rd, and 15th. What about other origins and destinations, even if the park road were to be designated as two-way?

2. You are clearly an experienced cyclist. Do you think inexperienced cyclists, children, families, etc. would be as fearless about biking on the old-style PPW as you were?

3. Don’t you think there would be as many people up in arms about designating pedestrian paths within the park as bikeable, or about adding a reverse-direction bike lane within the park, as are upset about the PPW bike lane?

4. Do you think the old PPW had a speeding problem? Do you know of any successful signal-based traffic calmings in NYC? I don’t think there have been any (and certainly not where signals only exist every few blocks, as is the case on PPW). Installing enough signals to make signal calming viable would cost *much* more than striping the bike lane — signals cost about $50,000 a pop, last I heard.

5. None of the other avenues in Park Slope have more than two moving lanes. (4th Ave is a different beast – more of a long-distance route.) Why do you think PPW needs three?

6. Have you biked or driven on Kent Ave since the separated bike lane went in there? There was a lot of uproar and confusion at first, but people got used to it and mostly seem to like it now. Do you think that could happen on PPW?

Yeah, some of these are leading questions, but I think they’re fair ones.

Steve,

I think I talked to you a little bit after the meeting. You were one of the handful of calm, reasonable people there who opposed the bike lane, and I recognize many of your arguments verbatim from our brief conversation.

Ultimately, it sounds to me like we can all agree that the real problem here is cars, not bike lanes. The “safety” issues “caused” by the addition of the bike lane are, in reality, still caused by cars:

– It’s unsafe to get out of one of a parked car on this “narrow” road “loaded with cars.” Agreed. Congestion is an issue because of too many cars driving down the road, and other cars/delivery vehicles double parking. Since virtually all of the other roads in Park Slope, er, make that Brooklyn in general, are only two lanes, maybe we should investigate how they manage to function without a third lane.

– The double-parking is definitely an issue, one that has nothing to do with bike lanes. Fortunately there is a very good solution to illegally double-parked delivery vehicles: dedicated loading zones. One parking space per block along PPW should be dedicated a “loading zone” between certain hours each day. Problem solved. No more illegally double-parked delivery vehicles.

– Speeding cars tho, that again is a real safety issue. Nothing to do with the bike lane of course, but it is the cruxt of all of the safety concerns: Cars are going too fast and it’s making it dangerous for people to get in and out of their parked cars. It’s a real problem. (We’ll set aside that the original re-striping had wider lanes, but with less parking, and it was rejected by the community board because people were unwilling to give up so many parking spaces. This narrower lane + more parking solution was approved by the same board. But forget all of that, lets deal with the problem at hand.) Timing lights differently doesn’t calm traffic, it makes people speed even more between lights thinking “maybe if I just go a little faster I can make it!” So you end up with a bunch of people racing to stop, over and over. (The least efficient way to drive a vehicle and thus causing more pollution.) The way you cut down emissions is for cars to drive more slowly without stopping and starting (breaking/accelerating) over and over. So to solve both the pollution problem and the speed problem in one go is to make drivers feel like they should drive more slowly but with well timed lights. Giving them less room (narrower lanes) has been shown repeatedly to achieve this. I would go one further and say it has *already* worked on PPW.

I don’t own a car, but I do use Zipcar and in the past when I was driving and needed to get around Park Slope I always tried to use use PPW. It was like a freeway. In a Zipcar time is of the essence and I was always in a hurry to get back to the garage. Fortunately for me PPW allowed me to get from Grand Army Plaza down to 11th street in no time! I could blow down the road at 55mph with no issues, and I’m sure I did. But Monday night I watched PPW very closely during that entire meeting. You could plainly see that traffic had been calmed. I don’t think anyone could realistically argue this point. The traffic was going half what it used to. And frankly, I imagine if I were to get a Zipcar and drive to my destination again today, there wouldn’t be any reason to take PPW, as it wouldn’t be enough faster to justify the few blocks out of the way that it is. So there, success, one less (rented) car traveling down the road. Not only is the traffic obviously calmed, but there will be at least one fewer car on the road.

So to sum up: it seems to me, other than the “aesthetic” argument (which you admit is the weakest) in every case you cite specific to problems with PPW, the bike lane is not the problem. The problem are the cars. They’re illegally speeding or driving unsafely, they’re illegally double-parking. These are the real problems. Hopefully the plan will work, and having fewer, narrower lanes will pay off in reducing both the speed people drive, and the number of people who choose the route. If residents were willing to forfeit 20 more parking spaces or so (during delivery hours) I think we could pretty well solve the illegal double-parking issue as well. Maybe that’s the primary takeaway of this “trial” period: “There’s too much double-parking, we need to add a loading zone on each street.” The only problem there is that based on the crazy people at that meeting (and I don’t mean you) I have a hard time believing those residents are going to be willing to give up any more parking spaces. Which I think says a lot about their priorities. Specifically, that to them, it’s not really about safety.

With all due respect, people who are finding it difficult to parallel park due to the new lane configuration along Prospect Park West probably shouldn’t be behind the wheel.

The parking lane adjacent to the bicycle lane buffer is eight feet wide. The travel lane next to it is 11 feet wide. I just measured our car, a Toyota RAV4 — a mini-SUV — and found that it’s less than six feet wide. That mean if I were to park against the three-foot buffer, I’d have more than two feet on the passenger side before I even get to the travel lane, which, at the aforementioned 11 feet wide, could accommodate almost two cars the size of mine. Even my brother’s truck, which I also just measured, a huge Ford F550 diesel, is less than seven feet wide.

People have been parking on 8th Avenue and 7th Avenue and 6th Avenue and 5th Avenue for 100 years without complaint, but reduce PPW to the same two lanes and suddenly parking is unsafe? That’s a complete canard.

And all of those other avenues are visited by FedEx and UPS and Fresh Direct and school buses and emergency vehicles, too — someone cite for me one incident in which the absence of a third travel lane on any of those roads was reported as the cause of an injury or dangerous situation. Just one.

As for congestion, if there’s been any slowdowns on PPW since DOT began work on June 1st, it’s most likely due to the work itself. Traffic volumes on PPW do not merit three lanes — it’s not a busy road, which is part and parcel to the speeding problem. DOT has measured peak-hour volume at about 1100 cars per hour — that’s one car per lane per block at any one time. Surely one-and-a-half cars per lane per block at peak volume is manageable.

As for the park drive already having a bike lane, that’s another canard. The park is used primarily for recreational cycling, and those cyclists often ride very fast. Imagine trying to cross the loop with cyclists coming fast from both directions. And as Mike pointed out above, the park drive is only accessible at both ends and at 3rd Street. And we all know that having cyclists and pedestrians squeezed together on the sidewalk — even a nice wide sidewalk — isn’t a tenable situation.

Let’s also wait until the bike path is actually finished, or even nearly finished, before complaining about the lack of users. If lack of users was an issue, PPW would’ve been reduced from three travel lanes to two decades ago.

as a driver, i understand being bummed about losing a lane on ppw. i definitely sped on that road.

as a cyclist and pedestrian, every bit of roadway taken from cars and given to other modes of transportation is a step into a better future — really, a step back from the destructive path that aaron so brilliantly described. what an amazing comment he wrote. i would never try to say it better.

so, yeah, it hurts to have it be harder to drive and park a car. i enjoy driving a car. i enjoy the incredible degree of personal freedom a car provides. so i need obstacles to pry me from it. bring ’em on — congestion tax me, take away parking and lanes of traffic. give me mass transit and bike lanes.