PPW Bike Lane Apparently a Big Success
Sorry, haters, it looks like the Prospect Park Bike Lane is working out pretty darn well, at least from a safety perspective. According to an article this morning in The Brooklyn Paper, DOT data shows that accidents are down since the controversial bike lane was installed last summer. More specifically, the number of crashes fell…
Sorry, haters, it looks like the Prospect Park Bike Lane is working out pretty darn well, at least from a safety perspective. According to an article this morning in The Brooklyn Paper, DOT data shows that accidents are down since the controversial bike lane was installed last summer. More specifically, the number of crashes fell to 25 in the past six months from an average of 30 during the same period in the prior three years; crashes that caused injuries were also down from 5.3 two, and injuries to pedestrians dropped 21 percent. Also, before the installation of the bike lane an accident was twice as likely to cause an injury. And there’s still room for improvement: Still to come to the bike lanes are raised pedestrian islands, bike markings at intersections, and narrowing the buffer between Union and Montgomery. In the words of DOT spokesman Seth Solomonow, “Projects don’t get much better than this.”
Photo by Steven Vance
Pedestrians crossing PPW are now forced to look both ways — when PPW was one-way vehicular, they only had to look one way. Takes getting used to.
http://www.forgotten-ny.com
There will never be bike lanes on every street. If you’re too scared to ride without a bike lane you shouldn’t be riding.
AWESOME!!
CGar, play along man. this thread was intended to trigger lots of posts. playing nice nice is NOT the end goal. Now say something nastier or just move along.
Was just about to post what BSD and ENY did. Seriously, WHAT is so controversial about bike lanes and bikers. Live and let live, people. If this is what people have to worry about, they really, really have too much time on their hands.
Stroller lanes? Good news! Now some of the more irrational bike-lane topic people will have a lane just for themselves.
You know the reason why some are so gung-ho about ticketing bikers is because it’s the most practical way to ensure fewer new bikers get on the road. Riding in the city is fairly dangerous, still, despite the bike lanes. There aren’t enough of them to make a serious dent in the fear factor, and then you start having to deal with asshole bikers with no patience for new bikers still learning their confidence. If you throw in the fear of getting a $200 ticket because you forgot to make a turn signal, wait for a red light or rolled up to the sidewalk in front of your apartment on a completely empty road, it puts a palpable chill on expanding the biker base. Which suits some people just fine, because they like the easy sell of bikers = douchebags just for being on a bike lane that used to be parking.
If the goal is to expand a healthier city life with bike-commuting part of the big picture, it’d be stupid to continue this much-advertised biker ‘crackdown’ past the benefit of a gesture.
I am happy to see a protected bike lane and there should be a lot more of those! Biking is both healthy and non polluting. I grew up in a country with a great bike culture where a majority bike to school/work. A bike culture is very slowly emerging in New York and I hope it sticks and grows. However, a lot of bikers here REALLY needs to be educated in traffic laws…I have not seen one person signal when they turn, and regularly people drive against traffic… That said, I dream of more protected lanes as biking in the streets of NY is still pretty damn scary.
I used to always ride my bike on the sidewalk at PPW because I’m chicken in traffic. A nice secure bike lane is good. I really don’t get all the fuss.
I wonder what’s going to happen when more and more people in those motorized wheelchair scooters take to the sidewalks. This past summer I saw one built for two whizzing by on the sidewalk outside my place. It was about golf cart size – I don’t know what they did when they turned the corner where sidewalk is too narrow for their width….
When I first saw those things in Wallmart in Va., I thought “great, now the obese lazy people don’t even have to stand when they go shopping.”
its true, gridlock saves lives.
gridlock is totally awesome for bus riders, and seeing how much capacity is left on the subway system i’m sure they can just pick up the slack there. especially in november, december, january, february and march. not a problem.
go seasonally used, gridlock-causing bike lanes, go!