Bike Lanes

When it comes to bicycling, Joe Lhota has a penchant for ignoring facts in favor of opinions. As Hurricane Sandy approached landfall, the then-MTA chief tweeted a photo of a man riding in a shared lane on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, implying that bike lanes are to blame for bike-bus crashes. This May, he said that DOT didn't coordinate with the fire department on bike-share station siting, when FDNY said that, in fact, DOT vetted the locations with them.

After a three-and-a-half-hour meeting that itself followed a nearly three-hour deliberation last month, the Manhattan Community Board 7 transportation committee voted 7-0, with three abstentions, for a resolution asking DOT to study safety improvements for Amsterdam Avenue. The resolution asks DOT to consider a protected bike lane, pedestrian islands, removing one of the avenue's four car lanes, and retiming signals. It now moves to the full board for a vote on November 6.

Many commuters on the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge this morning noticed new markings going in on First Avenue for a short but critical extension of the protected bike lane between 59th and 61st Streets. The changes, part of a plan supported by Community Boards 6 and 8 last spring, bring safer connections to both First Avenue and 59th Street.

Last night, the full board of Manhattan Community Board 6 passed a resolution in support of a DOT plan that would fill in a gap between two sections of Second Avenue's protected bike lane by replacing a car travel lane with parking from 23rd Street to 14th Street. Across the East River, Queens CB 1's transportation committee was receptive to community requests for traffic calming on 21st Street in Astoria and Long Island City, asking advocates to come back with more specific requests.

What strikes me about the Cops in Bike Lanes Tumblr, which we first wrote about last week, is the variety. Cruisers, vans, motorcycles, scooters -- regardless of vehicle type, NYPD will leave it in the path of cyclists.

There are two community board meetings tonight on complete streets plans in Manhattan and Queens.

In the grand tradition of the now-defunct MyBikeLane and UncivilServants, one upstanding citizen, who wishes to remain anonymous, has created the Tumblr every New York City cyclist has dreamed of: Cops in Bike Lanes.

A poll released by Transportation Alternatives today [PDF] sheds some new light on how NYC voters feel about street redesigns and automated enforcement when the policies are framed in terms of safety benefits.

Despite starting off with a somber reminder of the damage created by dangerous driving, Manhattan Community Board 7's transportation committee ended its meeting last night gridlocked over whether to support meaningful street safety improvements.