Bike Lanes

Bike planners, professional and amateur: Come and get it. The National Association of City Transportation Officials has released its Urban Bikeways Design Guide in digital format.

Not so long ago, it was common to hear NYCDOT staff say their job was "to keep the traffic moving." Engineers working from "the motorist's viewpoint" ran the show, much like they did in the 1950s. Those days are thankfully over. Today's DOT prioritizes safety and sustainability and has compiled a lengthy track record of innovation in a few short years. But as the transportation committee of Manhattan Community Board 6 learned last night, the old emphasis on keeping the traffic moving still restrains how far the department will go to improve conditions for other modes.

DOT's plans to redesign two Prospect Heights intersections to improve safety earned the endorsement of Brooklyn Community Board 8's transportation committee last Tuesday. The plan also includes an "optional" painted bike lane along Washington Avenue between Eastern Parkway and Atlantic Avenue [PDF].

With results like these, it's hard to understand why the city isn't rushing to complete the redesign of First and Second Avenue all the way up to 125th Street. According to DOT's presentation to its community advisory council Wednesday night, both the bus improvements, which go the length of the corridor, and the protected bike lanes, which run from Houston to 34th, are improving safety and mobility for all New Yorkers. Here are the highlights:

Is there any neighborhood in New York City that has asked for more and received less, in terms of safe street improvements, than East Harlem?

The First and Second Avenue bike lanes on Manhattan's East Side will only be extended from 34th Street to 57th Street this year, not up to 125th Street as advanced in a plan that won community board approvals in 2010.

"I'm not against bike lanes," City Council Member Domenic Recchia told the New York Times after forcing DOT to scrap plans for a four-mile painted bike lane along Bay Ridge Parkway two weeks ago. "I believe there's a place for them."

What's a road diet? Quite simply, traffic-calming expert Dan Burden told Streetfilms, "A road diet is anytime you take any lane out of a road."

If Anthony Weiner has anything in common with his mentor Chuck Schumer, it is that he thrives on attention. And now that he's created a niche for himself on the national stage as the unapologetic, in-your-face liberal congressman from Noo Yawk, he's apparently gained a following of disaffected young Democrats who don't necessarily feel represented by yellow dogs and centrist softies.