Soon enough, there will be one less lane of (car) traffic in Central Park. In addition to the new East/West pedestrian/bike path on 96th Street the Central Park Conservancy is now getting ready to drop one of the two car lanes on the open-to-cars-at-rush hour Terrace Drive in favor of a second bike lane. Olmstead and Vaux would be proud. more ›

Cyclist Evan Neumann was biking up Allen Street on the Lower East Side last February when he was pulled over by an NYPD officer and issued a ticket for something that isn't against the law in NYC. As Neumann was approaching Stanton Street, he checked behind him to make sure there was no oncoming traffic, and left the bike lane to switch to the right side of Allen, in order to make the right turn on Stanton. He was then issued a ticket for failing to use the bike lane. Thing is, cyclists are not legally required to stay in the bike lane in NYC in every situation. more ›

As you may have heard, the rich Park Slope crybabies who hate the popular Prospect Park West bike lane so much that they sued the city are suing the city yet again. They claim the DOT faked data to make the bike lane seem better than it is, and they've got a high-power attorney representing them pro bono, because those are the kind of perks you get when you're married to Senator Chuck Schumer. Their first lawsuit was thrown out because they filed their lawsuit after the statute of limitations had passed. The city had to spend $140,000 in legal fees to get that publicity stunt laughed out of court, and the meter's still running. more ›

The Wall Street Journal may have announced earlier this summer that the bikes have won but don't tell that to the paper's scruffy sibling the Post. That tabloid, like some Upper East Side community boards, thinks the battle is still on and today anti-bicycle zealot Steve Cuozzo has posted another report from the front line: Broadway between Columbus Circle and Times Square, where the bike lanes are supposedly murdering businesses. more ›

It would be a mighty understatement to say that the Prospect Park West bike lane has garnered a hearty amount of criticism and controversy in its young life. When anything can cause as many lawsuits, bile-filled community board meetings, and Marty Markowitz conspiracy theories as the PPW bike lane has, then the word controversy doesn't really do it justice. However, if you're the kind of person who wants to support the PPW bike lane and maybe isn't so into all the vitriol surrounding it, there is a decidedly non-controversial PPW family ride in support of the bike lane scheduled for Sunday. more ›

Tomorrow Brooklyn's Community Board 6 transportation committee will vote on the DOT's proposed changes to the famous Prospect Park West bike lane in Park Slope. Among the adjustments on the table: installing rumble strips at intersections to slow cyclists down, narrowing the buffer between the bike lane and the floating parking lane in order to widen the traffic lane, and installing raised cement pedestrian refuges to give people a better view of oncoming cyclists (and keep cars from illegally parking there). But the bike lane's determined opponents have another idea: relocating half of the bike lane to Eighth Avenue, a block west. more ›

If Gandalf the Grey was brought to life in Brooklyn, deprived of his magic wand and put under a magic spell that made him curse like a sailor, he might sound a little something like this gentleman. YouTube user MessiahSez is possessed of a deep, abiding hatred for bike lanes, which must make his marriage quite lively, since his wife happens to be "a very big environmentalist and bike lane advocate." Perhaps that's why he's so pissed off. In this video, he settles the great Prospect Park West bike lane debate once and for all with a decisive deployment of F-bombs. If you've got sensitive ears or workplace rules about vulgarities, it's time to put on the earmuffs: more ›

Tonight may prove to be a pivotal night in the battle over the controversial Prospect Park West bike lane. Just days after a well-connected group of local residents sued the DOT over the bike lane, the local Community Board is holding a meeting to discuss the hot topic. Citing a decrease in accidents and speeding on PPW, the DOT wants to make the bike lane permanent, but to do so they'll need the blessing of the Community Board. The anti-bike lane lobby would have you believe that the DOT rammed this bike lane down the neighborhood's throat in the dead of night, but it's worth recalling that it was this same Community Board that asked the DOT to study a two-way separated bike lane on PPW back in 2007. more ›

New Yorker columnist John Cassidy usually writes about economics, but he also drives a Jaguar around NYC, and the man is sick and tired of seeing bike lanes "poach on our territory." The phrase is telling, because it underscores Cassidy's unsustainable and ahistorical assumption that streets are for cars and cars alone (we remember when horses and bikes shared the roads). His smug, ill-informed essay applauds the anti-bike lane backlash, but not because Cassidy has anything against cyclists, mind you; he used to ride a bike himself, back when he was in college at Oxford and a dissolute East Villager in his 20s: more ›

Judging by all the hysteria from motorists who are mad as hell and not going to take anymore encroachment on their turf, you'd think the DOT's Janette "Sadist"-Khan had gone and transformed every vital thoroughfare into grassy promenade for cyclists, pedestrians, and opium cultivation. As one Brooklyn Community Board member put it when the bike lane war first exploded back in 2008, "You can’t accommodate every single street with a bike lane." Well the DOT showed him, because look at the city now: bike lanes EVERYWHERE! Or are they... more ›

We give them special little lanes for their bikes, we commission David Byrne to design artsy racks where they can lock them up, we even let them borrow bikes for free when they come to Governors Island for their precious MIA concerts. But it's never enough! Now some needy cycling advocates say they should be able to load their bikes onto the fronts of buses, like they do in other cities like Chicago, Las Vegas, and Kansas City. What's next, raising the height of bridges so cyclists can ride under with their tall bikes without bumping their delicate heads? more ›

The NY Post HATES the bike lanes because they take street space away from cars, and they inconvenience columnist Steve Cuozzo when he walks to work through Times Square. But it's a challenge to come up with a new rabble-rousing anti-cyclist article seven days a week. So to fill the gap when there's no bike lane "news" to "report," the tabloid has come up with an easy solution: just pull some anti-bike lane mail from the inbox to fill the column inches. Voila, the haterade is stirred another day! Here's what NY Post reader G. Davis of Staten Island has to say: more ›

A group of angry Queens residents booed a DOT representative and Mayor Bloomberg at a community meeting in the Rockaways last night, according to accounts in the Daily News and the Post. The jeers erupted after one local resident asked the DOT to get rid of the bike lanes that were installed last summer on the main thoroughfare of Beach Channel Drive. The response from Maura McCarthy, the DOT’s Queens Borough Commissioner, didn't go over too well. more ›

Today the City Council held a packed public hearing on bike lanes, to address a perceived outcry from New Yorkers who say the DOT's rapid expansion of bike lanes is killing all the baby unicorns. And not so coincidentally, the Times also published a hit piece today about the recent bike lanes added to Columbus Avenue, where the typical crowd of business owners have been chafing at the changes. Reporter Joseph Berger wonders if the bike lane is worth inconveniencing motorists, because he spotted very few cyclists when he checked it out for a half hour on Monday morning... when it was 33 degrees and snowing. more ›

A recent survey conducted by Councilmembers Brad Lander and Stephen Levin suggests that for all the hubbub over the newish bike lanes along Prospect Park West in Park Slope, the overwhelming majority of Brooklyn residents are actually in favor of the traumatic change wrought by the DOT. Out of the 3,000 respondents, 78 percent say they favor the bike lane to some degree, with 22 percent calling on the DOT to revert back to the previous design, with three lanes of traffic. But along Prospect Park West itself, dissent was more pronounced. more ›