Interesting. I guess they are worried about riders roaring down the ramp (the way motor vehicles do) and smacking a pedestrian crossing over while trying to beat the light. (No dismount zone in the other direction, right?)

Perhaps it's a good idea, although a traffic calming device for the bikes might do more good than tickets.

Now if they could just get the drivers to get out and push those last 30 feet, all the problems could be solved!

Now if they could just get the drivers to get out and push those last 30 feet, all the problems could be solved!

Excellent, Larry. There are plenty of ways to calm bike traffic; dismount zones are one of the most brute-force - and stupidest - ways.

I do not want to be exempted from the law. What I want is EQUAL enforcement. If the NYPD is going to devote the resources it takes to station an officer to warn or ticket cyclists, why not move that officer over just 10 or 20 feet to warn and ticket drivers? I've rarely seen cars flagged down for running lights, making illegal turns, or blocking the box.

jmc, this dismount thing is NOT THE LAW.

I don't know all the relevant laws here, but I am inclined to believe that this dismount policy is improper.

Unless the sign is from DOT, the cops are enforcing something that's not actually the law.

In normal circumstances, DOT governs the use of that path, and according to the current (and past) bike maps, bike riding is permitted on that entire path.

If this becomes a bigger problematic issue, I would bet money that the cops could be legally compelled to stop doing this.

I don't understand what they're on about here. If you look at the street view on google maps (please understand that everything I'm about to say is based on what I can see online, so I might be talking rubbish...), you can see that the sign pictured above is about 100ft from the very end of the bike lane. The sign says you have to dismount in 100ft, which is right at the end. There's nothing that says you have to dismount 30ft before the end. If the sign is actually 130ft from the end of the lane then are cyclists expected to count out the 100ft and estimate where to dismount? Or is there another sign, or lane marking, that says "Dismount NOW"? As far as I can tell, the signage implies that you must dismount only at the end, where most cyclists would have to at least stop anyway before crossing Adams. Do they expect you to completely dismount, or is stopping and standing astride your bike enough??

Yeah, this seems like there must be a misunderstanding somewhere...surely the intent of the sign is to alert cyclists to the fact that they must walk their bikes through the crosswalk (which I think is required at any crosswalk already, right?) instead of just rolling off the end of the bike path?

My guess is that either the officer misunderstood (or was given mistaken instructions on) what she was meant to be enforcing, or that the intended message was "just so you know, you are supposed to get off at the end of this bike path and soon we're going to hand out tickets if you don't" and she was just stopping people up the path a ways to be out of the way of traffic.

Also, I don't know where this idea that having fenders on your bike insulates you from police attention came from...more places to hide drugs!

"(No dismount zone in the other direction, right?)" -There is a stop sign for bicycles though, the compliance rate to which is 0%.

When I am walking across the East River Bridges I want to stroll and enjoy the walk and the view; I do not want to constantly be aware (beware?) of the bicycles proceeding only a few feet away from me.

I've been wondering lately if bicycles should be thought of as vehicles and grouped with automobiles and other vehicles rather than with pedestrians.

There is a second sign some distance from the first. The second sign says, "Bicycle Riders: Stop and Dismount -- Walk Bike" prior to the end of the bike lane, where the crosswalk is. So they want you to slow down and then actually walk the bike the last several yards. I agree that people bombing down the bridge are scary and can cause some problems. But, better to target speeders than all riders. And don't forget, there is a law requiring that all bikes have at least on skid inducing brake installed. Beware fixed gear brakeless riders!

Why not make room for cyclists on the roadway? that would leave the prominade for peds.

Absolutely, Paul! You may have something in the T.A. archives from the mid-90s from the Brooklyn Committee agendas. I believe at the time we actually felt that the path to Tillary Street was inconvenient for most cyclists, and we were asking the DOT to create a bike flyover from the bridge to Cadman Plaza East.

Amazing how much has changed in a little over ten years. With the gentrification of Fort Greene and Prospect Heights, we have a lot of cyclists coming from the east. Meanwhile, there are so many pedestrians on the bridge that there's no room for cyclists, and so many cyclists on the bridge that we're now talking about transferring a lane of the main roadway to cyclist use. Who would have thought that at the time?

I find I was talking out of my erse in my comments on this story, and there would be no harm if they were deleted...

I agree with BicyclesOnly, the access the points to the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge are a complete nightmare -- double parked vehicles, bike lane parkers, "no parking anytime" police vehicle parkers, and a shared car/bike approach to the bridge entrance which is scary because pedestrians are one inch from leaping into the street and blocking the entry point for bikes to make the turn when there's a crazed livery driver on your tail. It's all such a shame, when you think that NYC could be the greatest biking city in the world.

Obviously, it would be ideal t re-allocate space so that bikes and peds aren't squeezed into that very little space, but:

The very end of the path, right there on the south side of Tillary, can be really crowded during high-traffic times, especially when the weather is nice and there are a lot of tourists. Common sense would dictate that riders should dismount if there are a lot of people around, or not do so if it's not necessary. (Given how infrequently you can actually catch that light, it's not really that big of a deal.) Since people often fail to display common sense, though (see, for example, the need for a law banning texting while driving), discretion is taken out of our hands and we're all asked to dismount. I say it's a good idea, until the flow of people/bikes/cars can be organized better.

That being said, the lawyer in me says that if they're going to write tickets, they'd better make it more conspicuous that it's a mandatory dismount zone, because that one little sign isn't getting it done. Grooved pavement, multiple signs, something to make it clear.

Forcing cyclists to dismount and walk their bikes = cycling inaccessibility. Cyclists should have the right to ride in the street if an accessible path is not made available. It is the same with the bridge between Greenpoint and LIC, the Marine Parkway Bridge and others. Why not ask drivers to get out and push their cars through busy intersections, or give pedestrians tickets and warnings for walking in bike lanes?

Its great that the DOT is striping new bike lanes and building new infrastructure. But why don't they make existing infrastructure, that is currently inaccessible to bikes, accessible?

I wonder what would happen if someone in Look or Time cleats slipped and fell and injured themselves.

I think what would happen is people would say, "what are you wearing racing cleats on city streets for?"

When I was a reckless teenager, I was zooming down a hill at top speed and hit a dog, flipped and landed in the middle of the road on my back. My worst injury was a sprained ankle from the toe clips. (The dog ran away, so I think it was okay.) I haven't worn toe clips since; they're just not practical for cycling-as-transportation. I'm guessing they don't let dogs on the course for the Tour de France.

bumbling tourists make the brooklyn bridge a nightmare...use the manhattan bridge instead.

I'm not sure how this could be feasibly done given the bridge's design, but it would make sense to give one of the traffic lanes to bikes and configure the remaining five with a reversible lane so there are three inbound in the morning and three outbound in the afternoon. Then the boardwalk could be given over entirely to pedestrians.

Alternatively, maybe they could look into installing a double-decked boardwalk, with pedestrians above and bicyclist below. Clearly the bicycling and foot traffic on the bridge has grown to the point where additional real estate is becoming necessary.

As for the Tillary intersection, asking bicyclists to dismount is not the solution. There will never be compliance, and it's not a reasonable request for a bike commuter using a bike path anyway. I'm not sure it's a problem at all, to be sure, as the foot traffic there is not that great whenever I see it. But if it is, perhaps separate curb cuts for peds and bikes, and marked lanes for each across the intersection (as on the Centre Street side) would be helpful. That light is almost never green when you get there.

I would strongly support ticketing bicyclists without brakes and those wearing iPods. These people are a menace. If you're going to ticket, focus on people who are dangerous wherever they go, not everybody who wanders in to a poorly designed space.

Jessica, I'm often tempted to complain about runners on the bridge (I hope you do at least glance back if running deep into the bike lane to pass a clump of walkers). I often wonder how the bridge is their best place to exercise, with all the tourists out enjoying the landmark and the bicycle commuters taking their safest route home.

But all runners are not the same, and I'm going to assume you're one of the good ones. The bridge is a beautiful place for us to enjoy, and (my) rule #1 for being a good cyclist or runner in any shared space is to be willing to stop at any time. It sucks to be thrown off your rhythm, but that is life. Rule number #2 is to look before changing direction, and #3 is to stay within your designated space when possible. Sure, if everyone followed rules #2 and #3 we would not need #1, but there is no training school for walking, running, biking, or photographing the bridge pathway, and there is not, yet, any lane available on the lower bridge for bikes. Basically, we have to get along in spite of the fact that people are imperfect.

You are here to remind bikers that they are vehicles under the law?—actually, my bike is the vehicle, when it's on a road governed by traffic laws, but I'm still a human being. Being recognized as such is part of respect going both ways—let's do share the path.

And back to the topic here, last night I decided to take B.B. home and walk my bike at Tillary where the blessed sign says to. And I realized something: you may as well walk at that point because, if continuing down Brooklyn Bridge Boulevard's (deadly) bike lane, you're going to have to wait another half minute for the light anyway. So, from now on, unless I arrive with a ticking "walk" and a clear path across (which is rare, because the bridge autos get 90% of that cycle), I'll step off my bike instead of straddling it and stroll when the walk comes up instead of coasting. I maintain that it makes zero difference to anyone's safety (and isn't really any of their business), but if it makes signage fans happy I'll do my best to comply.

Anyone else willing to compromise from either end?

This is not a reasonable request. You can't say that a bus is accessible to the handicapped just because there is space on the bus for them if they are forced to get out of their wheelchairs and climb up the steps. Likewise, you can't say that a bike path is accessible for cyclists if you force cyclists to get off of their bikes.

This is a problem that is found all over the city on so-called bike paths and routes with dangerous consequences. For example, the bike path south of Chambers Street is currently inaccessible to cyclists so they are forced to ride on the West Side Highway. There was no attempt to accommodate cyclists during construction only to force them to dismount. This is also the case on the Brooklyn Bridge where the easiest solution is to make the bridge inaccessible to bikes.

Jessica, you're complaining about wayward cyclists while jogging at a mass cycling event? You're doing the wrong activity at the given moment that happens. As someone who rides across the bridge almost everyday and a resident next to the bridge, the real problem is the path isn't wide enough and no matter how fast or slow a bike is going, it's still going faster than any pedestrian. I never hesitate to yell at anybody crossing into the bike path ahead of me even as I have my brakes on. Fact is even with brakes applied the whole way down the bridge, a bike still has speed unless they will eventually want cyclists to walk the whole length. I would be nervous to ride on the roadway unless they built a solid barrier between the cars and bikes. There is a lot of work to be done on making downtown manhattan and downtown brooklyn safer for cyclists. The curb idea at the end is a good idea as well, it does need to be sloped or redesigned. Half the problem with that intersection is the enforcement by the cops, my co-op has worked actively to help change that for pedestrian safety (cops waving traffic through red lights while pedestrians young or old didn't have a shot of making the light). Bicyclists aren't dwindling so the city will be forced to deal with this sooner rather than later

Yesterday, I looked up to find the signs telling cyclists to dismount mysteriously gone. Wonder what happened.

The sign may be gone, but the PD was writing up some ladies at that spot as I passed this morning, apparently taking advantage of the fact that it isn't possible to ride from one bike path to the other without going through a crosswalk (because of the weird curb, at this would-be intersection of bike paths). There is usually a patrol car there, morning and night, though I have never seen them ticket queue-jumping cars from the bridge that run the red left turn signal or stop and wait plump in the crosswalk (depending on how reckless the driver is feeling that day). I guess the police are parked there mostly to harass the terrible, terrible people riding bicycles to and from work. (As the Manhattan Bridge bicycle approach doesn't have a traffic violation built into it, I haven't yet enjoyed the PD's generous services.)

Ms. Sadik-Khan: tear down this weird curb!

(Was it you I saw at 9:50, then?) I don't come from that direction so I'm less familiar with the signalling, but they're saying the only legal time for you to get to the path is a right turn arrow? That doesn't even make sense, and as usual for our signals, it would be one of the more dangerous times to attempt a crossing thanks to turning vehicles. Coming from the other way I have a safe, car-free traversal with the walk sign (when it finally comes up). So their position is that I can come downhill with the walk sign because there isn't any other signal, but you have to sit there and wait until you can get in the way of / be run over by turning vehicles with an arrow? (Two blocks up I run the red every morning, to avoid a similar conflict with turning cars that have green at the same time.) Someone needs to talk to this CO. Just because a person has (undoubtedly) complained about the bicycles doesn't mean they get to exploit faults in the intersection to give everyone riding one a ticket.

Oh, PS. I wasn't exactly thrilled to stand on that island basically in the middle of oncoming traffic for half an hour while he wrote up the ticket. And I couldn't keep count of the number of cars I saw running red lights while he was writing me up. It was silly, is all I know.

I can see this intersection from my office, and just a moment ago I watched a cop stop a cyclist and then saunter back to his illegally parked cruiser to complete the transaction.

If you're riding along Tillary and see a police car parked on the median just east of Adams, beware.

I got a ticket this morning there. I think it's $250, for running the red light when using the crosswalk to enter the bike lane on the bridge on the brooklyn side. This is the same as a motor vehicle ticket.

The ticket states I ran a red light. What I did was use the crosswalk when there was a walk signal. I used to use one of the two left turning lanes for car and turn with the green, but the traffic officers told me to use the crosswalk instead. I think it's really the best way to get on the bridge.

Asking cyclists to stop and dismount to get on a bike path is not a solution. The lane is poorly designed and puts pedestrians in harms way. The cyclists shoud have a dedicated lane in the roadway over the bridge and leave the walking path to the peds.

Coming from my side there is no sign to indicate how to transfer from the roadway to the bike path.

"The cyclists shoud have a dedicated lane in the roadway over the bridge and leave the walking path to the peds."

I agree with this entirely, except the shoud part.

I think about this every time I ride over the Brooklyn. What we give up to cars is sickening, what is more revolting is that cops can't seem to write tickets for motorists who kill or maim Peds and cyclists, but can cook up some lame excuses to ticket bikers while they access a bike route designated by City published maps. I keep thinking I can't trust them any less. This will be a fun 5 more years of this mixed message from City Hall.