How one New York bike lane could affect the future of cycling worldwide

Wowza - That's quite a headline.



"Connect the dots, and this becomes a much more significant story than the future of one bike lane in Brooklyn, or even the career of one official. New York City justly sees itself as the world's greatest city: here, in some sense, people live the way everyone would live if they had the chance. How New York – the city that still has a uniquely low level of car ownership and use – manages its transport planning in the 21st century matters for the whole world: it is the template. If cycling is pushed back into the margins of that future, rather than promoted, along with efficient mass public transit and safe, pleasant pedestrianism, as a key part of that future, the consequences will be grave and grim."

Read the full story by Matt Seaton at The Guardian.

Brooklyn Greenway - How to Make a Park

If you recall from our prior post, the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway held a public visioning session about how to develop a future park space at Columbia and Kane Streets. The park will serve as one of several nodes along the completed Brooklyn Greenway.

BRBR attended the meeting last month and served as one of the facilitators at the discussion tables. It was a great night and many good ideas were heard from community members about needed neighborhood amenities, bicycle access and broad visions about identity for the park.

Read more about it at the Carroll Gardens Patch blog.

The Bicycle Wars - Road Rights Blog

From the magazine Bicycling, a very interesting editorial about the cycling's evolution, rights on the street and attitudes towards striking balance:

"What is it about cycling that engenders such animosity in New York? The usual angry rhetoric accuses New York’s cyclists of ignoring the laws. But here’s the thing: ALL New Yorkers, pedestrians, motorists, and cyclists alike, disregard the traffic laws.

So if New York cyclists disregard the traffic laws, how does that make them any different from any other New Yorker?

It doesn’t. Well, except for that traffic safety part. Last year, 269 people were killed in crashes in New York City; 151 of these fatalities were pedestrians, 18 were cyclists.

And who was responsible for these fatalities? Eighty-percent of all New York City crashes resulting in serious injury or death to a pedestrian involved a male automobile driver, with 79% of the most serious crashes involving private passenger cars.

Bicyclists are apparently so insignificant a factor in traffic fatalities that they did not even figure into the percentages."

Read more

Lane named SUE!

Sure, you probably know all about the efforts of "well-connected New Yorkers have taken the unusual step of suing the city to remove a controversial bicycle lane in a wealthy neighborhood of Brooklyn." (aka Prospect Park West) Read More in the New York Times

Or read the pros (by Brad Lander) or cons (by Louise Hainline).

And now inspired, the Manhattan Beach Community Group wants to sue the City under that same grounds in order to remove bike lanes along Oriental Boulevard. Read more in the Courier Life.

Well, we can only think of the fights that are inspired when anyone shouts "Sue!"

RRR#5 - Bay Ridge to Howard Beach

Did you know that you can ride a bicycle from Bay Ridge to Howard Beach with about 3/4 of the route on bicycle lanes completely separated from traffic? It's true!

The past two weekends, we've pedaled this route and couldn't be happier about it. Admittedly, it has been a few years since we've tried going this far on this route. The path along the Belt Parkway used to end just past Carnarsie Pier at Pennsylvania Avenue. Now it goes all the way to Howard Beach.

Follow the on street lanes to Crossbay Boulevard across Broad Channel to the Rockaways, and return on the Marine Parkway Bridge on Flatbush Avenue and you have a great loop.



Sure, there are still the closer-than-you'd-like-to-be-to highway-traffic sidewalk bridge crossings over the water inlets (You can high-five the drivers if you'd like). Some of the route has a whole lot of debris from construction, winter snowplows, and those segulls near Canarsie Pier that always drop shells on the path to break them open. A portion of the path is still washed out at Plumb Beach though you can cyclocross your way through it without dismounting or resorting to the highway shoulder. And parts of the construction areas around the Fountain Ave and Pennsylvania Ave landfills are a bit tight to maneuver.

But imagine yourself as Emerson Fittipaldi buzzing the barriers in Monaco as you cruise across Jamaica Bay, and it's all suddenly a lot of fun!

For City’s Transportation Chief, Kudos and Criticism

ON a balmy night last June, the city’s Congressional delegation gathered for dinner at Gracie Mansion. Representative Anthony D. Weiner, who aspires to live in the mansion someday, knew he would have only a few minutes with the host, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. So he brought up the hottest topic he could think of: bicycle lanes, and the transportation commissioner who had nearly doubled the number of them, Janette Sadik-Khan.

“When I become mayor, you know what I’m going to spend my first year doing?” Mr. Weiner said to Mr. Bloomberg, as tablemates listened. “I’m going to have a bunch of ribbon-cuttings tearing out your [expletive] bike lanes.”

Full Story

Lawmaker Withdraws Bike-License Bill

A state Assemblyman has quickly withdrawn a bill that would require paid registration and license plates for all bicycles in the state, whether ridden by adult or child.

The Assemblyman, Michael G. DenDekker, Democrat of Queens, said he had been flooded with complaints from people who lived outside the city that they were being taxed and regulated to address concerns about unsafe cycling that existed largely in New York City. The measure had also drawn fire from cycling advocates in the city and elsewhere.

Full Story