Brooklyn Bridge

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.

In the headlines this morning, we linked to a great historical photo of the approach to the Brooklyn Bridge on Brownstoner, and it's taking a closer look at the full implications of the shot. Not for nostalgia's sake, but to make a cool, calculated appraisal of the efficiency of this piece of transportation infrastructure, as currently configured.

Heads up if you bike or walk across the Brooklyn Bridge: Rehab work slated to last until 2014 is narrowing the promenade from 14 feet to 11 feet.

A vital link in the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway is open, as a path through Brooklyn Bridge Park for pedestrians and cyclists nears completion. Though the park is still far from complete, the path cuts straight through the construction, connecting Pier 1, just below the Brooklyn Bridge itself, and Pier 6, at Atlantic Avenue. 

A quick note about tonight's meeting on motorist-cyclist relations put on by Brooklyn Community Board 2. "Sharing the Road, Sharing the Responsibility" -- a panel discussion with NYCDOT, NYPD, Transportation Alternatives, and AAA -- is an important one for cyclists to attend.

A hot topic on Streetsblog the past few weeks has been the massive numbers of pedestrians and cyclists using the Brooklyn Bridge walkway during rush hours and weekends. Since many folks don't have the chance to experience the promenade day-in and day-out, I decided to capture the conditions on a recent ride home from work.

The city will soon start a multi-million dollar overhaul of the Brooklyn Bridge, and while they're adding more space for cars, they're not doing anything about the havoc on the shared cyclist-pedestrian walkway.

Over the weekend, a Times op-ed from Robert "The Schluffer" Sullivan proposed physically protected roadway-level bike lanes on the Brooklyn Bridge as a way to eliminate cyclist-pedestrian conflicts and stem anti-cyclist sentiment.

Last week DOT unveiled this conceptual plan for a better gateway to the Brooklyn Bridge [PDF]. For the thousands of pedestrians and cyclists who access the bridge on the Brooklyn side every day, it's a winner.