Bike Lanes

A go-to NIMBY argument against safe street improvements is that bike lanes, pedestrian plazas, and ped refuge islands interfere with emergency responders.

This morning, WNYC's Brian Lehrer discussed the Columbus Avenue bike lane with reporter Kate Hinds. The show covered a fair amount of ground in a short amount of time, but gave a lot of airtime to a key assumption which has given cover to street safety opponents -- that small retailers in New York City need to maintain as much on-street parking as possible -- and let it go unchallenged for much of the segment.

Buried in the pile of uninformed New York Post letters to the editor following Steve Cuozzo's unhinged rant about the Columbus Avenue bike lane, intrepid readers found a note from Council Member Gale Brewer. "Bike lanes in my district are highly popular and strongly supported by the wider community," she wrote. "Expanding these benefits is the right thing to do."

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.