Bike Lanes
Streetsblog Basics
The Stupidest Bike Lane in America, Part 2
Last month, Slate Magazine's SlateV asked viewers to submit entries for the "stupidest bike lane in America." Responses poured in -- many from outside the U.S. -- and the honor went to a lane in Silver Spring, Maryland, which is so useless that the markings were removed before the Slate crew got to it.
May 2, 2008
Can Red Hook Become NYC’s Most Bike-Friendly Neighborhood?
Earlier this week, the Forum For Urban Design announced the Red Hook Bicycle Master Plan Design Competition, offering cash prizes for the best proposals to "re-imagine Red Hook as the most bicycle friendly neighborhood in all of New York."
May 2, 2008
The Stupidest Bike Lane in America?
Slate takes the short ride down what one of its editors calls "the stupidest bike lane in America," which leads Los Angeles cyclists for about one block before dumping them into Westwood traffic. Know of any of these in New York?
April 1, 2008
Community Boards Set to Review Livable Streets Proposals
Over the next week or so, community boards in Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn will take up planned livable streets projects, as described below.
April 1, 2008
Is CB 8 Angling to Get Rid of Bike Lanes on 91st Street?
Almost six months after DOT installed "controversial" new cross-town bike lanes on the Upper East Side, Manhattan's Community Board 8, which opposed the city's plan for lanes on 91st Street, has formed a "91st Street Task Force."
March 26, 2008
Eyes on the Street: Portland Bike Boxes
Not only are Portland, Oregon's new bike boxes to be accompanied by a motorist safety campaign, they're also making them hard for drivers to miss at street level. Note the "Get Behind It" sign to the right.
March 25, 2008
Moses to LaGuardia: Bikes Have No Place on the Street
Dave Lutz of the Neighborhood Open Space Coalition has been digging through the Municipal Archives and look what he found: a 1938 memo from Robert Moses to Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia about the need to create a network of dedicated bike paths in city parks. Moses's reasoning looks odd to modern eyes, in part because he argues for bike paths as a purely recreational amenity. His rationale for bike infrastructure fails to see cycling as transportation (sound familiar?), choosing instead to segregate bike facilities from the street network.
March 19, 2008
Envisioning a More Livable Columbus Avenue
As a candidate for a livable streets makeover, Columbus Avenue is a no-brainer. A block from Central Park, it is home to the American Museum of Natural History and sports a string of active ground floor businesses, but the street itself is a classically car-oriented corridor: three moving lanes sandwiched between two parking lanes. The Columbus Avenue BID has been working with Project for Public Spaces to make the street itself more of a destination -- to create a walkable, transit-oriented "spine" running from the museum to Lincoln Center on Broadway.
March 18, 2008
Eyes on the Street: Taking the Lane
From a Streetsblog tipster comes this shot of five of the city's 142,000 placard-bearing vehicles parked in the bike lane on Lafayette Street between Franklin and White.
March 14, 2008