Bicycle Infrastructure

After years of inter-agency wrangling, a wide-open intersection in the Bronx is set for a complete redesign that will include a new link in the Bronx River Greenway. The city presented a preliminary design [PDF] to Community Board 6's transportation committee last Thursday. While the plan is a big step forward, it lacks a crosswalk that would make it better for pedestrians.

Bike to Work Day is as good a day as any to take stock of how much work remains for New York to become a truly safe place to ride a bike, where everyone who wants to get places by bicycle can feel comfortable doing so.

Atlantic Avenue is one of New York’s most prominent streets, and in most respects, it is completely broken.

It wasn't a total surprise, but exciting nevertheless for bicycle advocates gathered at the NACTO "Cities for Cycling" Road Show in Oakland last night. Caltrans Director Malcolm Dougherty announced that the agency will endorse the use of the National Association of City Transportation Officials Urban Street Design Guide, giving California cities the state DOT's blessing to install modern infrastructure like protected bike lanes.

DOT will install Upper Manhattan's first protected bike lane this summer, pending an endorsement from Community Board 12.

Last night, Manhattan Community Board 2's transportation committee unanimously supported two safety measures: one to upgrade a bike lane on Hudson Street, and another to tweak pedestrian improvements at the car-clogged intersection of the Bowery and Delancey Street.

After a unanimous vote at its transportation committee earlier this month, Manhattan Community Board 2's full board last night unanimously passed a resolution supporting an upgrade of the buffered bike lane on Lafayette Street and Fourth Avenue to a protected bike lane. The project [PDF] runs from Spring Street to 14th Street and will include a northbound protected bike lane from Prince Street to 12th Street, pedestrian islands, and narrower car lanes to slow drivers.

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.

Digital-display bicycle counters, sprouting up first in European cycling capitals like Copenhagen and spreading in recent years to Portland and San Francisco, give a real-time tally of how many cyclists use busy bike routes each day. This year, New York is set to get its own. The Big Apple's version will -- like most things in the big city -- be bigger and brighter than what those other cities have. It'll also have a community-based twist.