Bicycle Safety

A bus driver seriously injured a cyclist on the Hudson River Greenway in Hell's Kitchen this morning.

Have you ever tried biking or walking across the Harlem River? Despite a plethora of bridges, walkers and bikers often face crossings and approaches that are confusing or downright hostile. A new campaign from Transportation Alternatives and local residents aims to focus DOT's attention on making it safer for New Yorkers to get between the two boroughs under their own power.

Matthew Brenner, who was struck by a motorist on Sands Street at an on-ramp to the BQE near the Manhattan Bridge bike path on July 6, died of his injuries soon after, his family and friends report.

What if Yankees legend Yogi Berra had followed a season with 24 homers and 144 hits with one featuring 27 homers and 189 hits? Would the baseball scribes have declared “Yogi Power Shortage” because only one in seven hits was a homer instead of one in six? Duh, no. The headlines would have read, “Yogi Boosts Production Across the Board.” The fact that a greater share of base hits was singles and doubles would have been incidental to the fact that Yogi’s base hits and homers were both up.

As Mayor de Blasio weighs the potential $100 million cost of converting his opposition to the Taxi of Tomorrow into official city policy, New Yorkers on two wheels should remember one key feature of the Nissan NV200 selected as the city's next taxi: It will all but eliminate the possibility of getting doored by an exiting taxi passenger.

The fledgling bike lane network in Brownsville and East New York will continue to grow. The second of three rounds of painted on-street bike lanes -- mapped out in a planning process initiated by neighborhood residents -- is set to be installed by the end of the year, pending the support of Community Boards 5 and 16 later this month.

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.

In a unanimous vote last week, Queens Community Board 6 passed a resolution [PDF] asking DOT for a complete redesign of Queens Boulevard to improve street safety. The board is the first along the infamous "Boulevard of Death" to request the study, joining a united front of City Council members.

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.