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Winter 2003, p.12-13 Special Report Transportation Alternatives rates on-the-street bicycling conditions and what government agencies did to promote cycling in 2002. This report card is intended to inspire Government to improve its promotion of cycling and to provide a record of the cycling environment. It should also provoke cyclists and Government to think about what makes a good cycling environment. T.A. gives credit for projects completed in 2002, not the years of funding, planning and engineering that came first. Overall, Government gets credit for treating cycling as a legitimate form of transportation. We assign two grades to eight categories, including two overall grades and a review of six bicycling basics.
This subjective category is a barometer of public attitudes towards cycling and Government efforts to promote it in 2002. This year, the City continued focusing on building bike lanes and greenways wherever and whenever it easily could. The DOT added bike lanes when its paving schedule allowed, not necessarily according to where they were needed to improve safety or to make connections in the cycling network. There was no effort to make bridge access safer, ensure bicycle access to buildings or restore the City's Bicycle Advisory Committee. A big plus in 2002 was that
the DOT, Planning, Parks and the State DOT's bicycle staff were accessible to
the public. However, key DOT divisions, like Bridges, need work. The DOT's
Thru Streets and new car-free hours in Prospect Park were boons to cyclists,
but these are limited advances compared to the potential of projects like the
Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming project, which remains dead in the water.
This category evaluates the physical cycling environment in the city, and its rideability for all cyclists. This year, DOT bike planners used opportunities in the repaving schedule to stripe new bike lanes. The DOT's strategy serves the Mayor's Management Report, which evaluates the bike program based on miles of new bike lanes, but it ignores safety, bike network connectivity and gains in ridership. The City did not make major advances in addressing the largest obstacles to cycling: lack of secure bike parking, unsafe traffic and poor street conditions. To do this, cyclists need high-level political support of putting the safety of cyclists before the speed and convenience of motorists. In 2002, cyclists lacked a champion in City Hall to push government agencies to make cycling improvements that would have increased safety and ridership, like making safe connections at the most dangerous locations within the bike network: bridge entrances and greenway connections. The overall cycling environment gets a "C" because it is still only tolerable enough to keep everyday cyclists riding; it does not encourage non-cyclists to take to two wheels.
Unfortunately, the dangerous and chaotic street environment did not change much. Speeding, dooring and failure to yield to cyclists went unenforced. The NYPD did not conduct zero tolerance crackdowns on dangerous drivers. Though T.A. maintains a positive relationship with the NYPD, we must remind it that it has not published timely crash information or instituted safety education programs for motorists. The unchanged grade also reflects the unchanged number of cycling fatalities--seventeen--between 2001 and 2002. Direct routes, like Atlantic Avenue, Queens Boulevard and Flatbush Avenue, remain dangerous, uncycleable obstacles to everyday cycling. Crazed cab drivers and oblivious passengers also remain an intractable problem. The Taxi and Limousine Commission made its taxi driver school more bicycle-friendly, but has not followed through on T.A.'s simple request to place 'anti-dooring' stickers in taxis.
The DOT focused on the quantity, not quality, of bike lanes in 2002. It placed new lanes opportunistically, so that only a handful of them made connections in the bike network. New lanes include Hering and Yates Avenues (Bronx), Avenue C (Manhattan), 36th Street, Winchester Boulevard and 222nd Street (Queens) and Clinton Street (Brooklyn). The latter three lanes make good connections to existing bike lanes, bridges and greenways. Citywide, bike lane conditions were abysmal. Contractors regularly left unfilled street cuts and metal plates in lanes and failed to replace bike lane striping and symbols. In 2002, T.A.'s Operation Hazard ID surveyed and reported over 500 street hazards to the DOT. The City should make surveying and repairing bike lanes routine. In 2002, the DOT did not test innovative designs, such as advanced cyclist waiting areas at intersections or contra-flow, two-way, median, raised or curb-separated bike lanes, all of which dramatically improve safety and encourage cycling.
Bridge access remains dangerous and confusing. In December, the DOT completed a fully-ramped bicycle and pedestrian path on the Williamsburg Bridge. But the deadly traffic on Delancey Street in Manhattan makes the path inaccessible to most cyclists. New signals, crosswalks and crossing signs will be a welcome addition in 2003. Access to the Brooklyn sides of the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges and the Manhattan side of the Queensboro Bridge are still perilous. The fact that access routes to all of the East River bridges are still dangerous reflects the City's failure to provide safe cycling connections between bridges and the on-street bicycle and greenway networks. Bike paths on the East River bridges are the backbone of the City's cycling network, but by not making access safer, the DOT is leading cycling lambs to the slaughter. Lost from 2002: City Planning's East River bridges bicycle access study.
NYC has beautiful greenways, but they are overcrowded and poorly managed. In 2002, Fleet Week closed the Hudson River Greenway and bicycle-pedestrian conflicts in Riverside Park went unsolved. In addition, the DOT planned to build a highway off-ramp across the entrance to the Shore Parkway Greenway and a truck route in place of the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway. Additionally, the Shore Parkway path is falling into Upper New York Bay. In 2002, the State DOT closed four motor vehicle crossings and redesigned eight others between Battery Park and 59th Street on the Hudson River Greenway. This shows that the SDOT is actively putting pedestrian and cycling safety before the flow of motor traffic. However, it still has not removed the dangerous and illegal stop signs on the greenway. The Mayor's announcement to build a path around Manhattan was a boost for Parks and City Planning. But Parks continues to be plagued by the lack of internal coordination about day-to-day greenway operations and of a patron at City Hall who puts pedestrians and bicyclists first.
There was no citywide progress in improving bike access to buildings. Because of New York's incorrigible bicycle thieves, building access is the key to encouraging more commuter cyclists. The City did not introduce any legislation that mandated bicycle access to buildings. Though bike access to City-owned buildings was part of the Transit Strike contingency plan, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services did not actually restore its "open door" bike access policy. The DOT needs a bike parking officer to work with building owners/managers, transit stations, parking garages and businesses to create secure bike parking. This year, cooperative planning for secure bicycle parking at transit made steady progress. T.A., working with the DOT, the 34th Street Partnership, Amtrak and Madison Square Garden, developed plans for secure parking at Penn Station. Looking ahead to 2003, New York's cyclists would benefit from secure parking at Grand Central Terminal, Whitehall Ferry Terminal and suburban rail stations.
A-Top effort/Top
condition; B-Good effort/Good condition; |
Progress: Momentum and
Attitude
The Overall Cycling
Environment
Safe Streets
Bicycle Lanes
Bridges
Greenways
Parking
Transit
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