Bike Lanes

The Department of Transportation has made it a de facto policy not to implement major changes to the streets without a favorable vote from the local community board. The idea is to defer to a group perceived as representing the will of the entire neighborhood.

NYC DOT's proposed design for bike lanes from 34th Street to 57th Street along First and Second Avenues, which call for a protected lane on First Avenue from 34th to 49th Streets and shared lanes everywhere else, earned the endorsement of Community Board 6's transportation committee last night. The 7-5 vote in favor of DOT's plan -- the nays thought it included too much space for cyclists, not too little -- came after a misleading discussion in which the committee members seemed not to understand what they were voting on.

City Council Member Brad Lander and Brooklyn Community Board 6 member Richard Bashner have filed an amicus brief in support of the Prospect Park West redesign carried out by NYC DOT. The brief recounts the extensive public process that preceded the installation of the bike lane in 2010 and DOT's ongoing engagement with the community board as the agency has refined the project and measured its impact. The next hearing on the PPW lawsuit is scheduled for June 22.

It looks like DOT is exercising its option to stripe a bike lane on Washington Avenue, imposing some order on street markings from Eastern Parkway to Atlantic Avenue. Previously it wasn't really clear whether this part of Washington was one traffic lane or two traffic lanes in each direction, leading to a lot of double-parking, dodging, weaving and speeding. Now it's official: Washington Avenue is one lane in each direction with left-turn bays and a marked bike route (some of which is sharrows). I could be wrong, but this bike lane might be NYC's first new route in 2011, which is shaping up to be a slower year for bike network expansion compared to the previous three years.

It's getting to the point -- probably well past the point, actually -- where the non-stop cyclist hate spewing from the New York Post has attained a level of self-parody. So free of fact and full of bald-faced vitriol is the paper's latest editorial, praising Ray Kelly's NYPD for a marked increase in cyclist summonses, that it's tempting to dismiss it as unworthy of thoughtful response.

A reader sends this shot of the freshly paved surface of Adams Street, heading toward the Brooklyn Bridge just south of Johnson Street. The parking regulations have switched sides, so it looks like the old curbside bike lane on the right side of the street -- a notorious double-parking zone -- will be shifting over, either all the way to the left curb or between the parking lane and the moving lane. We have a request in with DOT to find out what the plan is.

When DOT presented plans for traffic calming along Long Island City's 44th Drive in March, the department chose to put the four lane street on a road diet, using some of the reallocated space for a painted median. That still left enough space in the extra-wide parking lanes for a bike lane, however, a fact which Queens Community Board 2 pointed out at the time.

Earlier this week, Brooklyn Community Board 10 voted to stick with their stance against adding a painted bike lane to Bay Ridge Parkway. Since the project [PDF] would simply impose a little order on an extra-wide street without removing any traffic lanes or parking spots, it's tempting to write off the whole board as hostile to any bike infrastructure. That would be a mistake. There were signs of progress on Tuesday, as a few CB members signaled their determination to dispel myths about bike projects and win over their colleagues.

In the opening round of the court case against the Prospect Park West bike lane, the city says that the judge sided with its lawyers on the procedural question at stake in today's hearing. Said a spokesperson for the city's Law Department, which is representing the defense in the case: