Protected Bike Lanes

The Sixth Avenue protected bike lane is just about finished between 8th Street and 33rd Street, except for the pedestrian islands. The redesign is still in that awkward transitional phase where people are figuring out how to use it, so today Streetsblog checked in with a few of the thousands of people who bike Sixth Avenue daily to see how the change is coming.

DOT has finished striping the protected bike lane on Amsterdam Avenue between 72nd Street and 110th Street, and now it's moving on to the concrete. A reader sent in this photo of a brand new pedestrian island, more of which will be going in on the north side of intersections along the corridor.

Yesterday Citi Bike began its 2016 expansion, bringing new stations to Manhattan up to 110th Street and Brooklyn west of Prospect Park. We've got a few updates to share that didn't make it into our earlier post on the expansion and the bike lane upgrades DOT is implementing in the new service area.

As crews restripe Jay Street to implement a curbside protected bike lane, some sort of learning curve is to be expected. Drivers need a little time to adjust to the new parking lane, which floats to the left of the bike lane buffer. But NYPD should know better from the start.

That's right: There's now a stretch of parking-protected bike lane on Jay Street in downtown Brooklyn. The project's not done yet, but this afternoon DOT tweeted this photo showing a rideable section on southbound Jay near Myrtle Avenue.

On Monday, crews began work on the second phase of Queens Boulevard safety improvements. The project will calm traffic on the service roads between 74th Street and Eliot Avenue, adding a bike lane and continuous pedestrian path along the medians. Together with the first phase of the redesign, implemented last year, the changes will create 2.5 miles of median bike lanes on Queens Boulevard in Woodside and Elmhurst.

Work on the protected bike lane on Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn -- including a new signalized crossing at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge -- begins next Thursday, July 28.

Michael Andersen blogs for The Green Lane Project, a PeopleForBikes program that helps U.S. cities connect high-comfort biking networks.

DOT has a plan for a protected bike lane on 16 blocks of Second Avenue that will test out a new configuration, where the only protection is a row of short, yellow plastic "tuff curbs." The project shrinks the protected bike lane gap on the avenue in Midtown but still exposes cyclists to fast-moving motor vehicles on the heavily-trafficked approach to the Queens Midtown Tunnel. DOT presented the plan last night to the Manhattan Community Board 6 transportation committee, which endorsed it with one abstention and no votes against.