New bike lanes on Columbus Avenue in the summer 2010
(Kate Hinds/WNYC)
New York City has added 250 miles of bike lanes since 2006 in an effort, according to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to improve traffic, air quality and ultimately public health. But as polls show support for bike lanes, opposition has been loud — and vehement — around the city.
In Europe, biking culture has taken hold of many cities. Eighteen percent of Danish commuters bike to work, for example. Busy thoroughfares have bike lanes separated by a curb and traffic lights just for bikes. The lanes get a steady flow of cyclists -- young, old, women, white collar workers in suits -- and the story is the same in Holland and Germany.
"It's a really good feeling," said Lars Villemoes, who was attending a dinner party in Denmark's second largest city, Aarhus, in which all guests cycle to work and do most errands by bike. "I love it in the morning. I go faster every morning, and I love it when I see the line of cars and I just go past them, that's such a good feeling."
Several factors could play into this culture. Denmark has a 186 percent sales tax on cars, and gas taxes are also much higher, speed limits are lower and parking cars in a central city is an expensive and often impossible proposition.
"It simply is not true that European cities, and Europeans, were always bike friendly and walking friendly," said John Pucher, a professor of urban planning at Rutgers University.
"It's become more and more bike-oriented and walking-oriented and transit-oriented over the past three or four decades," he said, "and they have implemented a whole package of self reinforcing policies that have enabled this."
(PHOTO RIGHT: Bike lanes outside of a Copenhagen train station)
But here in New York, the 250 miles of new bike lanes have caused tons of drama. Hours of community board meetings, City Council hearings, even police precinct open houses have all been devoted to what is a surprisingly polarizing topic.
"New York City is going to be a tougher nut to crack," Hunter College professor William Milczarski said. "Eight million people, people set in their ways, special interest groups — everybody has an axe to grind it seems."
His research shows that pedestrians, drivers and bikers all behave badly — and all feel their rights are being trampled. His study found 1/3 of cyclists run red lights, and smaller numbers ride the wrong way on streets or cycle on sidewalks. But, he also found that on a 10-minute ride, the chance of a cyclist encountering a bike lane blocked by a car or a pedestrian is 60 percent . Milczarski said it’s about all contested space.
Van parked illegally (Kate Hinds/WNYC)
Pedestrian crossing illegally (Kate Hinds/WNYC)
"When we have this area below 60th Street, and 3.6 million people come into that space every day -- it's a very crowded area. To make it work, it's going to take a period of adjustment."
All the experts we talked to said there’s another problem in the United States: education.
A German driver's license requires practical, theoretical and first aid classes, and drivers must demonstrate that they're looking out for cyclists. But in New York? Ken Brown, a spokesman at the New York State DMV, said the law requires that the 20 questions on the driver's test include seven on alcohol or drug use and at least one each on road rage, work zone safety and emergency vehicles.
So there is no consistent one or two questions on the test about bikes? "No," he said. "It's not one of the mandated questions that has to be required on the test."
Better education for everyone would go a long way, according to Sam Schwartz (PHOTO RIGHT), who runs an engineering firm and writes the New York Daily News’s Gridlock Sam column. In the 1980s, he was Mayor Ed Koch’s traffic commissioner. 
"I, as a city official, never worked on a project -- even when I thought the project benefited everyone -- in which some group didn't come out and oppose the project," he said.
Exhibit A: This framed letter on his office wall. Schwartz reads: "'Dear Commissioner Schwartz: I am writing to protest the recently announced plan establishing bus corridors on 49th and 50th streets. Signed Katharine Hepburn.'"
He said there's only one way to see if these plans will work out better for motorists, cyclists and pedestrians.
"If the mayor has backbone, let him support what's going on right now and let's see what happens over the years," he said. "The problem gets to be when suddenly you have flip flops on issues and we never get to see if they work or not."
In 1980, Mayor Ed Koch built two bike lanes, and a month later, the man famous for asking "How’m I doin?" ripped them out. This time around, the Bloomberg Administration said it's sticking with its plan to build a network of bike lanes that stretches across the whole city.
Kate Hinds is an Associate Producer for WNYC News. She also reports for WNYC and Transportation Nation, a public radio reporting project that combines the work of multiple newsrooms to provide coverage of how we build, rebuild and get around the nation.
Nancy Solomon is the Managing Editor of New Jersey Public Radio.
Comments [16]
Three rings of the bike bell for this news piece! There is no reason why New York City can't vastly increase the number of cyclists on its streets. All it takes is the perception that cycling in the city is safe, which is what is keeping many thousands off the streets now. Building a true network of protected lanes, as they have done in Aarhus and in many other European cities, is the only way to realize the latent demand for getting around on two wheels. (Did you know that more than half of all trips in the city are less than 2 miles?) But we can only get there by building a safe biking network. If we don't, we'll never know the kind of city we could have had.
I'm all for more bikes and less cars in NYC to reduce air pollution in the city, but bicyclists MUST obey traffic laws and the NYPD must also ENFORCE those laws. Bicyclists over age 12 should be required to pass a written test and bicycles, like cars, should be licensed. You break that law, you get a ticket with a stiff fine. Too many violations? You lose both your license and your bike. Period. As someone who spent an afternoon in a hospital emergency room after being plowed down by a bicyclist in Central Park, pedestrians are too easy a target for bicyclists -- especially when there seems to be no consequences to reckless riding.
Whether biking, jogging, or just walking, I hate all the air pollution in the city. You can't go outside without smelling car exhaust. If streets were more bike friendly there would be a lot more of them and we would all be a lot healthier, end of story. No ad hominem attacks on Bloomberg can refute this.
Whether biking, jogging, or just walking, I hate all the air pollution in the city. You can't go outside without smelling car exhaust. If streets were more bike friendly there would be a lot more of them and we would all be a lot healthier, end of story. No ad hominem attacks on Bloomberg can refute this.
Yes, I love NYC, but biking is still best up- and -down the Riverside Park/West bikeway as recreation. Commuting is not easy, some of it due to logistics, but much of it due to culture, which will doubtfully significantly change.
Compare Copenhagen:
Yes, Copenhagen deserves the accolades of a truly great bike- commuting city. I was there last week and noticed that:
1. Unblocked, double-lane bike paths on main thoroughfares are carefully designed and routed (and as busy as car lanes), so bikers can ride at a clip and pass each other safely (and, I am witness--- as a slow rider, that no one passed me without ringing a friendly bike bell).
2. Bikes barely need be locked when parked--most just use a small rear wheel-lock box; theft and vandalism are almost zero. There are also ample places on the street to park bikes ALL over.
3. Pedestrians DO wait the lights, as do bikers.
4. Bikes/bikers look pretty low-key & although bikers rode briskly, people did so to get somewhere, not to road race against other bikers or mow down pedestrians.
Yes, Copenhagen is smaller than NYC--but also, less competitive and more civil, streetwise.
Despite the NYC difficulties in changing the "traffic" culture, biking as commuting should be encouraged as a viable, sustainable mode of city transportation. NYC's and the world's health depends on scaling down auto -gas consumption.
p.s. A larger city, Paris, also has much easier bike commutes, with good parking, bike lanes, easy on-off rentals, and a leisurely biking mode that makes biking seem a way to get from place- to -place versus a road race rage against other bikers, pedestrians and autos. So, size is not everything, big cities can also have civil biking.
Lets get real.
This is just the mayor's attempt to backdoor his congestion pricing plan.
This isn't Halifax or Berlin.
This is the largest city in the world.With at least four months of cold weather.
How much did those bike lanes get this January and February ?
And if he was concerned with taking cars off the street.
Take control of NYC Transit.Improve the subways and the buses.
Its the ego and believe me I can't wait for it to go !
Sorry, I meant to say Walden was a major contributor to SCHUMER's campaing.
Oh, and also? RBC, there's no reason why NY can't be a great biking city. Every city in Europe also said "We're not like (fill in the blank)." Copenhagen had the same amount of car use as the US in the 60's. They decided they didn't like the direction they were going and changed. And yes, you had crank there, too, saying "This isn't Italy! You can't have plaza's here!" Now look at them.
That excuse doesn't work. Maybe people won't want to bike from one end of the city to another, but buses and trains could make it easier to bring bikes on board and you could multi-modal it.
Also, I bike 22 miles a day. I'm over 40 and have bad knees. I use an e-bike and I get to work in a GREAT mood every day, even when it's cold and wet :)
I hate it when people try to compare the cities of Europe and NYC. Of course things are going to work much better in European cities because those cities have a much smaller in population and size. The average European metropolitan population (meaning city AND suburbs) has about 4.5M people. The City of NY alone has 8.5M!!!
We also have to realize that bike culture is more prominent in Europe because gas costs are astronomical over there. We are currently paying $4 per gallon; Euros pay $4 per liter (about 1/2 gallon for all those not metric system inclined).
We also have to realize who the supporters of bike lanes are: people that live in the high density, overpopulated areas with public transit & taxi options that have easy access to Manhattan. Well newsflash to those folks: the rest of the city is quite like that. There are swaths of the other four boroughs (yes, there is more to NYC than Manhattan!) where public transit is limited or not an option at all. Also in some of these areas, travel time is much shorter if you drive.
@ Alice
The media has completely misrepresented what went on in CB6, where the prospect Park bike lane is. First, DOT built the traffic calming measure (and that's primarily what the bike lane is) at the request of the community board, after years of work by members of the community. It then underwent a lengthy review process, with the community and the board involved at every step.
It wasn't until some of the residents across from the park found they could no longer double park "safely" that people started complaining, people like Iris Weinshall, former DOT commish and wife of senator Charles Schumer (who, despite his previous support of bikes still hasn't spoken about the lane); Normal Steisel, former deputy mayor, and other wealthy, powerful and politically connected insiders. Schumer's friend, Marcia Kramer of MSNBC, has produced many hysterical, biased and outright lying segments about the lane. And now Jim Walden, a partner at Gibson Dunn, a major corporate law firm, is taking suing the city on their behalf. It should be noted that Walden was a major contributor to Gibson's campaign.
In a nutshell, what you have is a popular piece of safety infrastructure (last week almost 800 people came out to support the lane and polls consistently show residents support the lane by a wide margin), fought for and worked for by the people, attacked by a few rich, wealthy, politically connected cranks with ties to media figures and able to get top corporate lawyers to fight for them (not to mention their expensive PR) firm.
Why isn't this the biggest scandal of the decade? Why do people, even well read people like you not even *know* about it? What’s wrong with the media that it hasn’t picked up this story???
The Prospect Park West bike lane was installed at the request of the community board to calm traffic and encourage cyclists to not use the sidewalk. It has been a huge success in both respects and is very popular in the community, a small loud politically connected group with a PR firm notwithstanding.
Bike lanes in NYC infuriates me! Not the lanes but New Yorkers attitudes to them and the police departments complete indifference to upholding the laws concerning them.
New Yorkers will learn to deal with them. I'm talking mostly about pedestrians who stand in them waiting for the light to turn green.
But the main problems are these:
1.) cars park and wait in them.
2.) cyclists ride the wrong way in them, mostly delivery people
3.) police seem to be color blind to green. They ignore enforcement completely.
I live near a police station and when they are not parking their squad cars in bike lanes I see squad cars and foot officers walk right past offenders EVERY DAY.
The bike lane outside my house is a school bus parking lot, the entire block every school day. And this is half a block from a police station.
A complete waste of money if the laws are not enforced.
Sad
Polls show bike lanes are popular, data shows they make the street safer for ALL users, and it is good policy to encourage bicycling. In New York there is a sizable minority that is opposed to EVERYTHING. There will be an adjustment period but at Sam Schwartz says, we need to move forward with this and give it a chance to work.
2 things we could do to come close to solving this problem-
1-most (70%) bike lanes should have isolating barriers, like in paris etc..just those rubber pylons would be fine.
2-cyclists need to be ticketed aggressively for their ridiculous behavior. have you tried walking across the brooklyn bridge lately? hundreds of idiot cyclists in their olympic outfits screaming obscenities at the tourists and families trying to enjoy the experience. maybe they'll stray 2 ft. into the bike lane? places like this need to be off limits to bikes.
it's the classic case of the few ruining it for the many.
I just returned from a trip to Berlin where I was surprised to see so many people using bikes in their everyday activities. They did not wear helmets, there were few bike lanes and most that I saw were on the sidewalk.
Clearly it can be done; however, NYC is much bigger, more crowded and used to dissent. The head of the traffic dept. should first explore the neighborhoods, hold meetings and do true experimental bike lanes before making them permanent. Park Slope's PPW bike lane is an example of the wrong way to do things.
Fact Check:
"In 1980, Mayor Ed Koch built two bike lanes, and a month later, the man famous for asking "How’m I doin?" ripped them out."
Not quite true! This applied only to the Barrier Bike Lanes, not to painted bike lanes.
Koch had DOT install painted bike lanes in 1978, on the left side of Manhattan avenues to be clear of the new bus lanes on the right sides. The 1980 barrier bike lanes were installed in place of earlier painted bike lanes starting in June. They were completed in October and ripped out 28 days after ribbon cutting in November.
But the barrier lanes were immediately replaced by painted bike lanes.
The barrier lane removal was a terrible publicity disaster for urban cycling, but on the ground in NYC, we actually did not loose "the bike lanes", only the barriers.
There was supposed to be a full year's experiment with those barrier lanes. Even in the limited time they were there, pedestrians were learning how to share the space by stepping past the bike lane to wait for a crossing green light - they had been standing in the bike lane. Motorists were learning to look and wait before turning across the bike lane. Koch's barrier lanes were doing pretty much what they were supposed to do. Too bad they were not allowed to stay for at least the full year.
Besides the surviving painted bike lanes, Koch's biggest legacy was the major improvement to non-motorized travel over the East River bridges. The 5 flights dangerous stairs on the Brooklyn Bridge path were replaced by handicapped and bicycle accessible ramps and the Queensboro Bridge was re-opened to bicycles and pedestrians.
The new DOT barrier lanes are now built with formal pedestrian waiting areas and formal left turn bays and lights - JSK's DOT has learned from and improved the 1980 barrier lanes.
I applaud the Mayor for his support for DOT, allowing them to stick with the program and getting it right.
I am ashamed of the New Yorkers who are against bike lanes. We finally have a mayor and DOT head, who are dealing with the grave problems of traffic and its extreme denigration of our quality of life in the city. It baffles the mind that there are those who want to fight this rational, progressive and beneficial idea! How wrongheaded and ignorant, and what a drag they are on all of us, even themselves!
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