Spotlight on NYC

Photo: NYC Bike Maps

New York City often comes up in discussions about bike lanes these days.  Apparently over 250 miles of bike lanes have been created within the last four years alone.  Popular grassroots support for better and safer cycling infrastructure, an increase in ridership, and strong willed municipal political support have made this possible.

NYC may be a sexy place to talk about bike lanes and bike culture, but it is not necessarily the leader in the U.S. Other cities like Portland, OR and Madison, WI have long been good cycling cities.

But there is a sense that if such a huge, congested and heavily populated city like New York can manage to redesign its streets to support the bike, then so can just about any other city.

While 'European style' bike lanes have been floated in the media, this past summer, when Toronto was very close to trying a pilot project on University Avenue by installing physically separated bike lanes, they were often described as 'New York style' lanes (like in the photo above).

Two articles of interest:

Despite the great progress in NYC, there have been some set backs. A friend of mine has sent me a few news stories from the Times: one is about how backlashes to newly installed lanes has resulted in lanes being taken away; the other is about some bike lanes that seem to go underutilized by cyclists.

The first article highlights a common theme that rides across North American cities that are coming to terms with redesigning their streets. Like New York, Toronto has been struggling with it's own backlash to bike lanes (e.g. the recent mayor election campaigns, the redesign of Jarvis St. and Bloor St., etc.).  When there is limited public space, the debate unfortunately becomes one of 'my rights versus yours'.

The second article is perhaps more curious.  At a recent Toronto Cyclist Union meeting I heard the following interesting anecdote: more bike lanes were installed when Mel Lastman was mayor than when David Miller was mayor; Miller's retort was that Lastman put all the easy lanes in.  This is to say that bike lanes are political and often cycling infrastructure goes in where there is least resistance rather then where it is needed most. For example, there is a shiny new bike lane of sorts on Harbord St. but no bike lane on Bloor despite the fact that Bloor would make a heck of a lot more sense for an East-West biking corridor.

Photo: Copenhagenize

The NY Times article on an underutilized lane begs just this question: are we willing to build a cycling network that addresses the needs of cyclists, or do we prefer to build a patchwork system that is most feasible.  While I don't know much about the lane mentioned in the article - whether or not it makes sense in the larger scheme of a NYC network - one way to solve this issue is to have people out on the streets tracking cyclists.  Several years ago, Copenhagen employed people to stand at intersections and count the number of cyclists that rode by. Now they have an automated counter.

With respect to the NYC lane, user comments provided other perspectives to the 'cause' of the lane's underutilization, like it being winter. Here's one example:

"Wow, such a scientific study on bike lane usage. A 2 month old, 19 block long bike lane in winter wasn’t used for the half an hour this reporter stood around. And the conclusion is what, in the headline? Perhaps look at a bike lane that’s built properly, that’s of sufficient length to take people somewhere, when weather is not freezing, and you’ll see something different. The person from the TA is right, bike lanes become useful when you have a whole network of them to take you where you want to go, not just a 19 block stretch. All you have to do is take a look at the east or west side bikeways along the rivers, during the summer, to see how many people want to ride bikes in a safe place. If there were protected bike lines the entire length of Manhattan, they would be used. But you have to start somewhere, which is why you have small stretches of bike lines now, which hopefully in the future will grow into a usable network. - san"

For more on cycling in New York, check out the following links:

NYC Department of Transportation

NYC Department of City Planning

Transportation Alternatives

NYC Bike Maps

Cycling in New York Wiki

Cycle Toronto Summer Road Trip: Chicago and New York City!

At the end of June I went on two trips with my partner: first, to Chicago, where we saw a great Phish show, stayed with an old friend, and ate at the delicious Frontera Grill; then, to Brooklyn, where we baked in the heat, wandered the city, had some succulent pork, and had a generally fantastic time with some good friends.  On both trips I did a little "field research" and observed the cycling culture and infrastructure.  Below are some photos I took.

Chicago

On our way up to the L I saw this nifty bike parking area. Two levels, a great way to connect cycling and public transit.  The (out of focus) picture below is the same parking area from another view.

Unfortunately, that's all I have for Chicago.

New York City

These seemed to be pretty standard bike lanes in NYC: painted white lines separating them from car traffic and green paint to indicate it as a bike lane. Definitely nice to see the green paint, much like Copenhagen's distinctive blue paint.

One morning we decided to walk across the Brooklyn bridge into Manhattan. On the way up to the bridge we found this pathway with separated space for pedestrians and cyclists.

Here is another example of the green painted bike lanes, but this one has a much larger buffer painted between the bike lane and car lane.  The major design flaw, as you can see, is that it doesn't do much to prevent cars from driving across the buffer and even into the lane itself.

This road forks into two directions and you can see the green lane on the left and a sharrow marking on the right to direct where cyclists should ride.  Unfortunately, the bike lane has been placed between the parked cars and the rest of traffic.

Finally! Here is a picture of a separated and dedicated bike lane.  It is totally removed and protected from the rest of the street. Perhaps it's not the most attractive separated lane I've seen, but it gets the job done.

This picture shows how road designers have placed the separated bike lane and cars making a left hand turn. Presumably cyclists have the right of way on a green light.

In this photo you can see not only the physically separated bike lane, but also the bike specific traffic light.  I'm a big fan of bike specific traffic lights where there are bike lanes like these because it helps cars and pedestrians realize that cyclists are on the road and have particular right of way rules.

A beautiful photo taken by my partner from the roof top of our hosts' apartment in Brooklyn.

Round Up

That's it for Cycle Toronto's summer road trip.  It's always interesting to see how other cities are accommodating cyclists and improving their cycling infrastructure.  Toronto was close to getting a New York style separated bike lane on University Avenue this summer, but we all know how that ended.  If you're going be taking any road trips of your own, snap some photos of cycling and cycling infrastructure and send them in so that I can post them on the blog.