City Promoting Bike Lanes More Aggressively
Today The Times covers how the city has set out to make its case for bike lanes, saying it hasn’t been “aggressive enough” in promoting and defending them. The PR push comes after the lawsuit filed over the Prospect Park West bike lane. The lawyer repping the plaintiffs in that case has been on a…
Today The Times covers how the city has set out to make its case for bike lanes, saying it hasn’t been “aggressive enough” in promoting and defending them. The PR push comes after the lawsuit filed over the Prospect Park West bike lane. The lawyer repping the plaintiffs in that case has been on a media blitz himself and says “the Bloomberg administration had still not addressed concerns about its closeness with bicycle advocates and its interpretation of statistics.” Meanwhile, the article notes that the bike-advocacy group Transportation Alternatives has hired a PR firm for the first time in its nearly 40-year history: “‘It’s all hands on deck because the future of our city does, quite frankly, hang in the balance,’ said the group’s executive director, Paul Steely White. He framed the recent ruckus as a turning point in whether the city continues to promote pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly policies.” The story also highlights that the city’s defense of bike lanes comes amidst the mayor’s low poll ratings “and a fair amount of resentment from those who live outside Manhattan, who tend to be less in favor of bicycles.”
Promoting Bicycle Lanes as if They Were on the Ballot [NY Times]
Photo by Graham Coreil-Allen
“So what do bike lanes really accomplish?”
Safety, for cyclists.
Convenience, and mobility, for people who can be encouraged to become cyclists.
Not everything is about entire commutes. A safe bike network encourages bike trips that aren’t well-served by public transit.
It’s not an either-or. Some trips are best served by one mode. Some aren’t. If you let people get around by bike safely, they’ll feel safe enough to start to bike around the neighborhood for local trips, bike between adjoining neighborhoods, bike to go shopping, bike to the subway, bike instead of waiting for the bus. It’s not just about commuting to Manhattan at rush hour.
evfred 9:58 raises some VERY good questions.
Did any of you Brownstoner commenters attend the CB6 meeting earlier this month? I’m sure I saw lots of you there. Very interesting demographic – a sea of white faces. Conspicuously absent were African-Americans, Latino/as, Asians. Just a few older white folks in attendance, and a great many more white folks in their twenties or early thirties.
What’s my point? Ordinary middle-class people in Brooklyn don’t really care about bike lanes. The only time they’re involved with bike lanes is when the bike lanes inconvenience them, which may be often, but not often enough to spur them to attend meetings about bike lanes.
If it were more apparent that all the money spent on bike lanes could be better spent on improving roads and traffic safety, then middle class people might pay more attention and come to the meetings. But probably not, because they’ve got enough problems, trying to get around town with crappy, crowded roads and diminished public transportation.
tybur6 – Did I say that DOT did snow removal? DOT could have declared a snow emergency, thus triggering DOS snow removal, but failed to do so and then blamed other agencies — such as PD — for not having made the call.
Umm… Hairyone… Snow Removal is the Dept of Sanitation! The DOT doesn’t manage the garbage trucks with the plows on the front. Learn some basic things before you whine.
Bikes are great – but who are riding them? Manhattan and Brownstone Brooklyn, where owning a car is very difficult, are the areas of greatest support of bike lanes, not surprisingly. If DOT wanted to make the claim that bike lanes will help clean the air, then how about some statistics on how bicyclists would otherwise get around. Would they drive? I doubt it. Would they walk? If the distance was short enough.
Most likely, they would be on the subway or a bus. So what do bike lanes accomplish? They don’t reduce traffic, so the same number of vehicles have to travel on a reduced number of moving lanes on streets resulting in congestion, idling and more air pollution.
And by diverting folks from public transit, they remove badly needed revenue from the MTA that must still transport the majority of non-biking New Yorkers around the city.
So what do bike lanes really accomplish?
zinka
“DOT isn’t going to send their own people into the middle of someone else’s construction site to waste money painting lane markers that will just be cut open and paved over before the project is finished.”
Even though Flatbush Avenue just happens to run through the site? Nah, DOT’d rather just sit back and wait for somebody to get killed. Probably a cyclist.
“And no, Sadik-Khan didn’t say it was the PD’s job to plow the streets. You’re mixing up your unsourced tabloid character attacks.”
You’re right. She didn’t say that. She said that it was up to somebody else, not DOT, to declare a snow emergency — maybe the PD. Classic bureaucratic finger-pointing. And hubris beyond all measure.
Are you serious? This is a giant construction project, not run by DOT. When they get done with moving all the utilities around and paving the street for real, then they’ll paint lane markers. If you want to complain, complain to EDC. But DOT isn’t going to send their own people into the middle of someone else’s construction site to waste money painting lane markers that will just be cut open and paved over before the project is finished.
And no, Sadik-Khan didn’t say it was the PD’s job to plow the streets. You’re mixing up your unsourced tabloid character attacks.
zinka
“he Flatbush Avenue project is NOT DOT! It’s an EDC project. You can look it up. It’s completely irrelevant to this discussion.”
Oh, sorry, so it’s not DOT’s job to paint lane markers or pave the streets, eh? Hey, that sounds familiar! It wasn’t DOT’s job to make sure the streets got plowed in February, either. As I recall, didn’t Sadik-Khan say that was the Police Department’s job?!
Oh Yes, hairyone, those are GREAT points!! And they really show how the DOT is not working on the streets because their workers are spending their time installing bike lanes everywhere!