Protected Bike Lanes

At a lengthy meeting Wednesday night, the transportation committee of Community Board 7 passed a resolution in support of the "concept" of protected bike lanes on Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues from 59th to 110th Streets. The 6-2 committee vote came after testimony from area residents, business people, and community board members from Hell's Kitchen and midtown, who noted the safety benefits and other improvements separated lanes have brought to their districts.

Chalk up more bikeway innovation to the folks at the NYC Department of Transportation. Nearly complete, the Sands Street approach to the Manhattan Bridge is now safer and more enjoyable thanks to a New York City first: a center-median, two-way protected bike path. The facility is a perfect solution to counter the dangers posed by a tangle of roads and highway on-ramps that burden the area. Dramatic before-and-afters tell the delicious story.

We've got another dispatch from the ongoing bike lane drama that is Kent Avenue. At Wednesday night's information session hosted by Brooklyn CB1, the DOT team gave a short presentation [PDF] outlining their plan to address truck traffic changes caused by converting Kent to one-way flow. Then the public was invited to comment.

Cyclists riding across the Manhattan Bridge have had about a month to try out the new Sands Street bike path, and based on the reviews so far, two major kinks are marring an otherwise sterling project. First, motorists, especially delivery vehicles, can't resist using the mountable section from Navy to Gold as a double-parking zone. And second, the two-phase crossing from the Sands Street path to the Manhattan Bridge path encourages cyclists to make some risky diagonal movements.

Clarence sends these shots from Kent Avenue, where the striping and painting of the city's first two-way, on-street parking protected bike lane is currently in progress. This is the view looking north from the vicinity of Clymer Street. The project will be completed in two phases. According to DOT's project presentation [PDF], the current work, stretching from Clymer to Broadway, will be complete in mid-September; the second phase, from Broadway to North 14th Street, is slated to wrap up in about a month. Below is the view looking south toward Clymer.

A reader sends this view of Pike Street, taken from the Manhattan Bridge bike path late last week. You'll notice the square of light pavement connecting two mall segments. That's the intersection with Monroe Street, one of four locations slated for pedestrian plazas in DOT's most recent plan for Pike and Allen Streets [PDF]. A center median protected bike path running from Houston Street down to the water -- the first of its kind in New York City, I believe, depending on how you categorize the Sands Street bike path -- is also in the works. DOT's project presentation characterizes these changes as interim improvements that can help generate support for further funding and more permanent construction.

Later today, Transportation Alternatives will mark the completion of a major Brooklyn livable streets improvement -- a protected bike lane on the Sands Street approach to the Manhattan Bridge.

Thanks to BicyclesOnly for posting this shot from yesterday morning's commute to the Streetsblog Flickr pool. By my count, we've got six people riding bikes here on a one-and-a-half block stretch of the Eighth Avenue protected path, with two or three others farther back, in the shade. As far as I can tell, everyone is riding in the right direction. If I was an Eighth Avenue merchant, I'd start agitating for more bike parking in front of my store.

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.