Protected Bike Lanes

Safer streets are taking shape in Midtown, with work underway to create new paths through the heart of the city for pedestrians and cyclists alike.

Photo contributor extraordinaire Jacob-uptown has uploaded a new batch to the Streetsblog Flickr pool, taking us on a tour of the major new bikeways DOT is implementing in Manhattan.

The Department of Transportation has completed a multi-year transportation study of the Upper West Side, and Wednesday night the agency walked local residents through the many proposed changes [PDF]. The suggestions for the area between 55th and 86th Streets, west of Central Park, include a number of valuable intersection-level improvements to pedestrian safety, but left some feeling that the recommendations don't go far enough.

Cross-posted from Brooklyn Spoke.

The Bikes Belong Foundation has chosen six cities to fast track physically protected bikeway designs that make cycling safer and more accessible to a wide range of people.

Reader Liz Patek sends these shots of the new road markings on First Avenue in the 60s. The protected bike lane that Manhattan Community Board 8 approved last summer is going in.

Is the NBBL era finally behind us? First, Senator Chuck Schumer himself was spotted riding in the Prospect Park West bike lane. Now, the Department of Transportation is reviving a plan, shelved at the height of the NBBL-aided media circus about cycling, to build a two-way bike lane on Plaza Street.

You might remember a wave of news stories that broke around this time last year with headlines like: "Columbus Avenue Business Owners Say Bike Lanes Driving Down Bottom Line," or "Lack of Parking Destroying Columbus Avenue Business," or "Study: Street Redesign Hurting Upper West Side Businesses."

One of the year's most exciting street safety projects is on track to get better. Thanks to a recent set of recommendations from Community Board 4, the extension of the protected bike lanes on Eighth and Ninth Avenues will include additional sidewalk expansions and on-street bike parking. Though DOT didn't adopt all of the board's ideas -- most notably, the agency is leaving a gap in the physical protection for cyclists in front of the Port Authority Bus Terminal -- on the West Side, the community board's requests are helping to build a better bike lane.