Arthur Peabody

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/n...ths-lanes.html
If you can't read it, try right-clicking on the URI, saving the file, reading that copy: that works for me; I have no subscription

Leisesturm

If you can't be bothered to make some personal observation about the story why should you expect anyone else to be bothered enough to jump through logistical hoops to do so? I haven't lived in NYC in about 10 years. At that time it was possible to commute with some dispatch from outer bourghs into the City Center. I don't hold out much hope for new protected bike infrastructure to be intelligently deployed. It's been tried before. And the lanes had to be destroyed after they proved to be an absolute disaster for all concerned. NYC is an old city. Built when automobiles were not yet a thing. It really is time for the City to just say no to non-essential vehicle traffic during dawn to dusk operations. That may not work in other cities, even smaller ones than NYC but such a plane could work there.

detroitjim

Whats this supposed to mean??? "250 miles of protected bike lanes in the coming years" ...... Maybe like 25 years???

mr_bill

In fact, there has been ONE protected bike lane removed - Dyckman St. It's scheduled to be reinstalled, but hasn't been, and this is de Blasio we are talking about, who gets spooked by absolutely frivolous lawsuits, prisons, and whenever one member of a community board says boo.

"The Streets Master Plan calls for 30 miles of protected bike lanes in the first year and 50 miles in each subsequent year."

So, if you do the math, less than 6 years. However, the detailed plan is due December 2021 weeks before de Blasio leaves office. (BTW, back in May the due date was October 1, 2019. So there has already been a two year slip just to get the damn bill signed.) So it will be on the next Their Honor to fulfill this "vision."

Kick the can. Safety delayed is safety denied.

-mr. bill

DrIsotope

I wonder how many committees it will have to go through before the first shovel touches the ground. We had a dedicated bike route approved locally, to connect the one of the High Schools (about four miles away) to the nearby complex of elementary/middle schools.

The plan was approved, federal and matching funds were locked in, the design work was completed... and it has been in committee since February of 2017.

For point of clarity, this is the street the bike route is supposed to supplement:



Several cyclists and pedestrians have been killed on this road in past years-- I mean, look at those ample shoulders. But it doesn't matter. Things will move at the speed of bureaucracy, no matter how many deaths occur.

Leisesturm

You see ample shoulders there? I don't. And with only one lane in each direction there is no easy way to construct the bike lane without totally shutting down travel in one direction or the other. And unless I way miss my guess the percent of bike traffic to vehicle traffic is likely less than 98%/2%. No, I don't see this project being fast-tracked to completion.

Leisesturm

There have been others. Built (and removed) long before DeBlasio could even shave. One I know of first hand (though I never used it on principle) ran past the flagship Macy's on 6th ave. at 34th St. Another was on Broadway in the same general area. This would have been circa 1992. In those years the cycling community was almost exclusively commercial operators. Protected bike lanes locked a fast cyclist to the speed of a very slow one. If the lane was blocked for any reason escape was nearly impossible if the bike you were riding could not be lifted over the obstruction or the lane barriers themselves. The cyclists that most fervently agitate for protected bike lanes will never use them. Maybe once and never again.

DrIsotope

Reading is fundamental: I never said bike lane, I said bike route. Class 1 Bike Route, completely separate from traffic. In the north/south direction, there are exactly 2 roads connecting the neighboring towns: Orange St, and Alabama St. Both are in similar condition, both have experienced fatalities of both cyclists and pedestrians. Not that it matters. There could be a 20 foot wide dirt shoulder on both sides of the road and nothing would get put in.

But absolutely, because fewer bikes than cars cover that roadway, do nothing. That's how it's be done so far.

On the Strava Heatmap, the lighter color, or "hotter," the more traveled by bike.



We all ride that road because we have no other options. But bicycles are not and will not ever be a priority.

mr_bill

Would you believe built in the 1980s? Ed Koch has a bridge named after him, not that anybody calls it that. Sheesh.

While on the subject of back in my day we didn't need no stinkin' bike lanes....

-mr. bill

CliffordK

Save the Tumbleweed and Sagebrush!!!

DrIsotope

It's the kangaroo rats! Any construction that is attempted within a few miles of the Santa Ana River Basin, they have to do a long and drawn out environmental study to see if it will impact the San Bernardino Kangaroo Rat.

People can get run over and the roads can disintegrate, but we got to save the rats. Note: not shown in photo, but for about a mile in each direction to the left and right of the road, vast sand and gravel pits. House-sized dumptrucks all day long.

SactoDoug

I just saw this video about the bike lanes in NYC. The new bikes lanes have improved traffic times.

mr_bill

Spin failure.

Back in 2014 Hizoner published a “VISION ZERO action plan.” Really was “Vision ZERO ACTION plan.”

In other words, safety delayed is safety denied.

-mr. bill

livedarklions

I know I repeat myself here, but I think Vision Zero is one of the worst branding efforts ever. First, the ridicule just writes itself. Second, no matter what you do, critics will be able to claim it's ineffective because reaching the stated goal in the name is an impossibility.

De Blasio really is the master at making absolutely no one happy--he's just delaying the inevitable not in my parking space backlash for the next guy at the cost of lives lost during the delay.

Notso_fastLane

TBF, there's almost 8 billion people, and only probably a few hundred kangaroo rats left.

Pratt

Dedicated bicycle routes, almost by definition, remove bicycles from the rest of society. If you want to get somewhere, work, grocery store, dry cleaner. etc. you have to come back into contact with the rest of the world. Dedicated routes also run the risk of engendering resentment among motorists and other non-bicyclists. That being said, some places are inappropriate for bicycles, like bridges without walkways.

livedarklions

What?! All things being equal, a bridge without a walkway is just like any road without a sidewalk. I ride on such bridges a lot, and even where there is a walkway, I will continue on the bridge roadway just as I would on a road with a sidewalk.

There are bridges where bikes are expected to ride on the walkway. In my experience, there's always a sign to the effect.

I do remember getting confused by a sign that said something like "Bikes Must be Walked on Walkway", and decided that was not a prohibition of riding in the roadway as riding in the road is legal unless the road is labeled as restricted.

Pratt

A lot of bridges are narrower than the roads they serve, and lack any kind of shoulder. Coupled with a nice stiff uphill one really hopes for courteous motorists, and no oncoming traffic

Miele Man

I'm not a fan of bicycle lanes in general. Where I am there are only painted on the road bike lanes and no segregated protected bike lanes. The problem I see with bike lanes and especially with so-called protected bike lanes is that they eventually end and usually end before you get to your destination. Also they take you out of the drivers' fields of vision and thus they aren't looking for you at intersections which include driveways and entrances/exists to/from plazas and/or malls. But worse yet is that they prevent bicyclists from learning how to deal and ride with motor vehicle traffic. In short, in my honest opinion, segregated/protected bicycle lanes give bicyclists a FALSE sense of safety.

YMMV

Cheers

livedarklions

If you ride in a city, almost all the roads you ride on have no shoulder. To me, riding on narrow roads is just part of the routine business of biking. I think you just stated a personal aversion as if it were a general rule--you don't like riding on bridges without walkways, but there's nothing inherently inappropriate about it.

mr_bill

2019 Was An Extremely Deadly Year For NYC Cyclists. Here Are Their Stories

Say their names. Tell their stories. Call out inaction.



-mr. bill

Juan Foote

Just read an article a couple of days ago that reflected as of the 2018 information that Atlanta, GA saw over a 30% increase in both pedestrian and cycling deaths. My personal thoughts aren't so much that drivers are more careless than in the year before, but that there are a great deal more cyclists.

shoota 

I'm surprised the cyclists didn't get charged for their own deaths.