30 September 2009
New York Separation
New film from Streetsblog. Coverage of a new separated bicycle lane on Sands Street.
I had the chance to ride around New York and Brooklyn a couple of days ago. Missed this one, unfortunately. It was great to see New York City with bicycle eyes after having visited the city so many times before. Amazing to see how many people on bicycles are rolling through the city.
Got me a Bullitt cargo bike from a friend, Johnathan, who flew to Copenhagen earlier this year to buy one and ship it home. Riding (almost) the same bike as you do at home was brilliant.
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3 thinking out louds:
This lane is very near my house, and I get to ride on it every time I go over the Manhattan Bridge. In fact, I'll be riding over it in a few hours on my way home!
This is one of the bits of recent bike infrastructure I'm most impressed with here in New York; it's a great solution for the traffic problems of getting different kinds of road users to the bridge in a safe and efficient way.
Unfortunatly, that area of Brooklyn is now heavily gentrified, so many people who ride bicycles cannot afford to live there, and live in poorer neighborhoods further from Manhattan that lack bike infrastructure and lanes.
Also, Jersey City New Jersey, has a huge bicyle culture only 2 minutes by train from manhattan, but it's ignored by New York City and the international community while Brooklyn gets all the attention. For example, It is common and expected that bicyclists can ride on the sidewalk in New Jersey, but New york is very strict about that.
I wish the Holland tunnel would allow bicycles. There is no way to travel to Manhattan on rush hour on Bicycles because the PATH subway between New Jersey and New York Doesn't allow bikes on trains during rush hour. Also, there is no protected bike lane or parking at the World trade center PATH station.
Anonymous - this lane is not really meant to be a neighborhood thoroughfare - it's an approach to the Manhattan Bridge. Which means that anyone who is headed for said bridge is going to use it, whether they live in a gentrified neighborhood or not. One also has to pass by several housing projects to get from here to the gentrified part of Brooklyn, but that's another issue entirely. I see all kinds of people and all kinds of bikes on this path and on the bridge.
Additionally, a lot of middle and lower income parts of Brooklyn have pretty good bike infrastructure. For instance the separated bike and pedestrian paths along Ocean and Eastern Parkways. Bedford Avenue has a bike lane from South Williasmburg through Bed Stuy all the way down to Sheepshead Bay. In fact, if anything, the really wealthy neighborhoods are less likely to have good bike infrastructure; notice for instance the hostility to bike lanes in Park Slope.
Oh, and re the WTC Path train - have you heard about the Hudson River Greenway? It's a separated bike/ped trail which starts right around there, goes all the way up to Upper Manhattan, and has really good connections to the rest of the bike infrastructure in NYC. Sorry to be sarcastic, but you sound pretty clueless about bike culture in New York.
Also, can you imagine if adults were allowed to ride on the sidewalks in NYC? I can't really imagine a worse situation for both cyclists and pedestrians. I'm pretty sure that would be the last straw before bicycles were simply outlawed.
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