Eyes on the Street

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.

This was the scene outside 153 Franklin Street last night. Yes, that is a reporter's notebook, but they're not talking about what it's like to bike all day in the midst of speeding cabbies, aggressive SUV drivers, and trucks a hundred times bigger than you, delivering food to impatient customers while getting demonized in the press with startling frequency. A tipster writes:

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.

On Tuesday evening, a van driver headed east on 72nd Street jumped the curb at Columbus Avenue and crashed into a light pole. Last night, a driver jumped another car at the same intersection, ending up with a front wheel perched on its mangled hood. Reader Liz Patek sent in the shot above.

Another day, another motorist barreling onto a New York City sidewalk. Reader Liz Patek sends this shot of the crash aftermath at Columbus and 72nd Street yesterday evening, where a van driver, apparently heading east, jumped the curb and crashed into a light pole. The tally on CrashStat reveals that 20 pedestrians and eight cyclists were injured in traffic crashes at this intersection between 1995 and 2005.

Pop-up indeed!

Here's another story of how Police Commissioner Ray Kelly allows his scarce traffic safety resources to be spent. Reader Marc Norman took this picture after an encounter at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge bike-ped path this morning. He writes:

Clarence sends along a few more shots from the beginning of construction season. These come from Queens Plaza, where the two-way bike approach to the Queensboro Bridge is extending eastward.

Construction is underway at the intersection of 23rd Street and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, where DOT is building new pedestrian refuge islands and a sidewalk extension to provide some extra space around a busy subway station. The intersection, currently in the 99th percentile for severity-weighted traffic injuries in the city, will also have its signals adjusted to give pedestrians more conflict-free time to cross the street. The new plaza extends across two of Seventh Avenue's six lanes on the southern side of the intersection.