the problem they're trying to fix with the fence is that cyclists descending an abrupt 8% grade into a blind corner are occasionally hitting peds and are u-turning West onto Eastbound Canal. Now cyclists will hit a fence instead. It's great that there will be fewer bike-ped collisions, but it's still a crumby solution to tweak another crumby solution.

I took a look at it today from the B train. I could still see construction equipment being stored there.

Hasn't the plan always been to finish the current Manhattan Bridge repairs and then start on the bike lane there?

The real mystery is what happened to Sands Street. Has it been totally forgotten?

I just rode through here last Thursday and noticed the pavement markings. I was able to see that the off-street 2-way bike lane was marked off, so this news backs up my theory.

My thinking is that if the pavement markings are already in place, the project's implementation can't be far off. They wouldn't make surface markings if they weren't planning on doing it very soon.

While I, too, would prefer to be able to ride right off the bridge and onto Chrystie St., I understand the reasons that this is being prevented. The combination of the speed of cyclists exiting the bridge coupled with the blind turn that cars coming off the bridge make onto eastbound Canal would make for fatal conflicts. The only ways to prevent it would be to dream that cyclists would observe a traffic signal (anyone want to debate whether that would commonly happen?) or reverse the traffic direction on that segment of Canal.

Inbound from Brooklyn, I've never seen a cyclist continue east on Canal. 99.9% of them will take the one-block wrong way in order to go north on Chrystie Street. The design of the ramp is retarded (as pointed out by the presentation) but these changes will ameliorate the worst hazards.

Everytime I see that structure -- and the sea of billboards -- I'm reminded that Canal Street became the transmanhattan expressway even without Robert Moses.