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This year the DOT reached a goal of adding 200 more miles of parking space bike lanes in NYC—but as every cyclist knows, these also double as sweet traffic lanes, loading/unloading zones, and parking lots. The danger in all this, of course, is that when a bike lane is blocked, bicyclists are forced to merge with auto traffic, sometimes causing accidents and fatalities.
Here are some photos submitted by readers documenting the ongoing vehicular violation of bike lanes. It's understandable that in this crowded city there has to be some flexibility and give-and-take between commuters in cars and on bikes. But so many motorists don't think twice about blocking a bike lane, and one wonders how they'd would react if a group of cyclists locked their bikes across precious lanes of car traffic. We're certainly not advocating civil disobedience, but if you try that experiment, send us your photos! (And wear some body armor.)
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well, i don't know about locking bikes across traffic, but i do seem to remember a monthly bicycle-oriented event that some people said blocked traffic. it brought out the police in full force. such absurdity.
Eleven pictures of bike lanes and only one has actual bikes in it. Kind of like real life.
That's because the bikers are taking the photos, genius.
More like the BIKER.
I don't even own a bike and am an unapologetic car owner, but this makes even my blood boil. I would never think of parking in a bike lane much less DRIVING in one!! The worst part of it all is the open parking spaces in pretty much all those pictures. Are these drivers doing this on purpose or what? The city should start a ticketing blitz for this. Imagine the revenue!
UPS, Nestle, Garda, etc are all working to improve the way their drivers find "parking". The dispatch office for the coca cola trucks that operate in Manhattan is really hard to reach.
I would really like to see some kind of citizen based enforcement-- I mean, I don't like drivers & think most bikers are jerks, let me say upfront. But man, yeah-- maybe bikers wouldn't be suicidal lunatics if actual bike laws existed & were enforced. Can there be some sort of "I took a photo of this car & its license plate & sent it to the traffic police...& then they mailed him a ticket!" program?
Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
Every year there are 350–500 million cases of malaria, with 1 million fatalities: Africa accounts for 90 percent of malarial deaths and African children account for over 80 percent of malaria victims worldwide.
Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.
Some 1.8 million child deaths each year as a result of diarrhoea
Bicycle lane debate rages in New York City
Ha, very true and you make a good point.
Of course, this maneuver can be used to attempt to derail discussion of almost anything, since there's almost always something even more morally urgent that we could theoretically be concentrating on.
You know something, every year 1.8 million children die from diarrhea because they don't have access to clean water, and you're wasting time in a blog comment section chiding people for being interested in bike lanes. I don't know how you can look at yourself in the mirror.
yes. surely you can't focus on more than one issue at a time as a socially conscious person. let's all stop now and eradicate hunger and educate everyone. oh wait, i spend every day and most weekends working to ensure kids get a high-quality education. sometimes i even think about gay rights, but i should probably stop that so i can spend more of my time focusing on kids, right?
It takes two to debate, and you seem to be spending time here doing just that rather than going out to solve the problems you claim are so important.
Wanted to add another photo to the mix- NYPD parked in the bike lane near the Manhattan Bridge (on Canal) - http://www.flickr.com/photos/threadseven/2517904786/
OH THE HUMANITY!!!!! I will be taking pictures of the 50+ bikers this weekend that will be riding in the Ped lane of the Hudson River greenway. Can Gothamist please post those pictures? Or is that not allowed since Cyclist never do anything wrong.
And someone else will be taking photos of the hundreds of joggers who run in the bike lane.
And I'll try to capture the images of all the douches who ride their bikes on the sidewalk and don't warn you, they just suddenly whoosh up behind you - just awesome.
OK, please post them here.
from what i've seen, way more people walk/jog/meander on the bike side of that path than vice versa. not to mention i frequently see people letting their little kids run along the path, walking 4 dogs at once on the path, etc. the path should primarily be used by joggers and bicyclists on their respective sides. do you really have to walk your dog on the path when there is a 100 foot wide swath of grass 2 feet from you?
Yeah, no kidding! I gave up on the Hudson Greenway years ago because there were so many clueless pedestrians who insist on walking in the bike lanes despite the nearby presence of ped-only paths.
This is New York City, not Venice Beach, CA. If you cannot ride a bike w/out safely navigating around common obstacles then you should NOT be riding a bike in NYC, esp in Manhattan. The bike riders who blithely and cluelessly ride along, oblivious to their surroundings, smugly thinking that they should always have the right of way, deserve to have incidents. And then take the subway.
"This is New York City, not Venice Beach, CA. If you cannot ride a bike w/out safely navigating around common obstacles then you should NOT be riding a bike in NYC, esp in Manhattan."
Quite right. Likewise, if you can't figure out where to stop your car or truck without breaking the law, you definitely shouldn't be driving in NYC.
When I'm on the sidewalk and I come across an obstruction -- I walk around it. Don't bicycles have steering capabilities? Part of the problem is that the city painted green stripes anywhere they chose and declared them bike lanes, without any regard for their impact on traffic (pedestrian, bikes or cars). Where should that school bus pick up and discharge students? In the middle of the street, or just ahead of where they're parked and block the driveway? Same question for trucks making deliveries. Cut the cop a break too, unless you want them to drive around looking for legal parking before responding to calls.
Yes, but when you come across an obstruction, are you forced to walk into traffic to get around it? Usually not. For a bike, going around a car usually means merging into the path of speeding cars, and most bikes don't have review mirrors.
Here's the reason why parking in a bike lane pisses cyclists off: You put their lives in danger. When there is something that blocks the lane, cyclists are forced to merge into the adjacent car lane which will more than likely have cars speeding by. There's no easy or safe way to merge into traffic. If you were put in this situation on at least a daily basis, you would be pretty angry about it too.
For this reason, seasoned cyclists usually opt to ride in the car lanes so they can avoid having to move in and out of speeding traffic due to bike lane blockers. However they are then verbally and sometimes physically attacked by impatient drivers for going too slow.
In my experience the verbal abuse usually includes "stay in the fucking bike lane" or "ride on the sidewalk where you belong".
Car vs Bike parked on car lane = crushed bike.
Listen you annoying, nasally-voiced FUCKS, I ride bikes too, but there is only so much space on a road. They are not there as your little heavenly bubble of safety, it is more like a guideline. Move back to Ohio if you don't like it. Sometimes there is not enough space to just pull over in the middle of the street. When you need to get around a car in the lane, just be careful and be thankful the lane is there for most of your journey as opposed to not there at all like has been the case all these years.
that's a pretty flower in your profile pic.
Well said.
The endgame is to get rid of the vehicles. We're doing a reverse Robert Moses here, can't you see?
I finally start using that awesome Sands Street bike lane and now I find out that they are doing construction on the lower part of the manhattan bridge and will close it for three years. My solution would be for bicyclist to use those big ass flourescent green stickers that the Sanitation department uses on car winshields parked when they have street cleaning with "Douched Parked in Bike Lane"
there actually is a sticker out there:
http://www.iparkedinabikelane.org/
snatch 'em up and use 'em!!
I went through hundreds of those stickers when I lived downtown... but now that I'm in Harlem, I don't have access to them anymore :(
Way to bring attention on the cars in bike lanes dilemma John, keep up the good fight.
the court case would be titled "delivery man trying to do his job so our society can function vs. ignorant selfish prick who thinks the roads should be clear so they can ride their bike in their fantasy land"
by the way, if anyone is wondering what a meaningful bike lane looks like, here is an example in copenhagen- http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/IMG_0199-bike-lane_1.jpg
Plenty more examples of this documented daily on http://mybikelane.com/ ... and not just in NYC.
I ride my bike daily from Brooklyn to work in Midtown and really appreciate the added bike lanes. Usually pausing, waving, and pointing at the lane-blockers embarrasses them enough to think twice. I also come from a state with lenient concealed-firearm laws and know it could be much worse!
Its unrealistic to expect bike lanes to always be clear. Cars double park in car lanes too. Pedestrians jaywalk, bikers go too slow, cabs run red lights, cars but off bikers, bikers cut off cars. The main difference is bikers and pedestrians don't kill motorists. You're better off 5 minutes late to work than sending some kid to his funeral early.
How about we put small concrete medians between the bike lanes and the car lanes, like they have in some parts of the city, as well as in Amsterdam and Paris. That way less bikers are killed, motorists aren't slowed down, and we can all go back to being irrationally angry about more important things.
I can't stand the cars are bad crew, but do think bikes should have their place and it should be respected. But wouldn't it be easier if the city could pick one type of bike lane and let traffic adjust? Bike lanes are in/outside of parked cars on the left and right side of lane, in the in/outside lane. NYC pick one! I vote for right side of traffic left side of parked cars.
I have an entire Flickr set dedicated to this problem:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bitchcakes/sets/72157621477653646/
I could contribute 5 to 25 pictures of motor vehicles blocking bike lanes per day. That's on the eight miles or so of streets I ride between LIC and Battery Park City on working days. The subject really needs a web site of its own. In a few months it would have thousands of pictures.
Yeah, I just go around the obstructions. But I think we were better off when we just rode in the middle of the rightmost traffic lane.
Couldn't they come up with a better looking bike-helmet symbol on the biker's head? Looks like he's wearing a wok on his head.
I am the night rider!!!!
Bike lanes must be strictly for bikers and any violation must be strictly dealt with. I'm a biker myself and prefer to use my bike to do my part in saving our earth from the ever rising pollution. Moreover violations may also result in serious accidents.
On Bedford ave, between Fulton St and Flushing is a great place to drive 40 mph in a bike lane. You can park there too if you like, but really that bike lane is better for passing other cars.
Kill the cabbies and everyone will be happy! Room for bikes, cars, delivery trucks and even the fire trucks won't need to blow their friggen horn so much.