Bike Lanes

At least 150 people turned out to hear NYC DOT's proposal [PDF] to extend the bike lane to much of the rest of Columbus Avenue. More than two-thirds of the approximately 35 people who testified before the committee were strongly in favor of extending the lane north to 110th Street and south to where it could eventually link up with the Ninth Avenue bike lane.

In the wake of last week's setback for efforts to bring more bike racks to the Upper West Side, Manhattan Community Board 7's transportation committee will hold a key meeting tonight about an issue on which its chairs have failed to take action: protected bike lanes and complete streets.

Despite a positive vote in committee, earlier this week Community Board 7 on the Upper West Side sidelined a plan to bring more bike racks to the area, after some procedural maneuvering by transportation committee co-chair Dan Zweig stifled discussion. With a key presentation from DOT on extending the Columbus Avenue protected bike lane coming up next week, the episode is a reminder that just about any change to the street faces an uphill battle with Zweig and his fellow co-chair, Andrew Albert.

After more than a year of collaboration between residents, community groups, DOT, and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the first project in a new round bike lanes for Brownsville and East New York is almost in the books and ready to be installed next year. The proposal is for simple lines on the pavement -- not protected bike lanes -- but, along with a road diet on Pennsylvania Avenue, it would bring safer conditions to parts of eastern Brooklyn that currently have next to no bike infrastructure.

Robert Kolker's New York Magazine feature on traffic deaths and injuries brings some welcome attention to NYPD's miserable enforcement record. But readers -- and the WNYC listeners who heard Kolker on the air yesterday -- will probably still come away with a warped view of what determines street safety in NYC.

The NYC Department of Transportation is undertaking a feasibility study for constructing a protected bike lane on the Pulaski Bridge connecting Greenpoint and Long Island City, agency representatives said at a neighborhood transportation town hall on Monday night.

The guerrilla bike lane on Bergen Street now has an official imprimatur. It may be hard to believe, but the tug-of-war over whether bike riders or parked cars from the 78th Precinct belong in the Bergen Street bike lane -- tough one, isn't it? -- now has an unexpected referee. Over the weekend, NYPD barriers popped up on the edge of the bike lane where it approaches Flatbush Avenue, replicating a citizen-led effort that flourished for about a week this summer.

Hats off to Steve Fisher, Wayne Scott and others who took to the streets today to stop the removal of bike lanes in Toronto.

The protected bike and pedestrian space on Broadway between 42nd and 35th Streets will be redesigned in 2013 to give more space to pedestrians, removing a motor vehicle lane. The alterations will also change the bike lane from a protected route often used by pedestrians as a de facto sidewalk extension to a buffered lane between curbside parking and moving cars.