I have created a group for Brooklyn Bridge Cycle Track Advocates. I hope that it will draw the energy of both cyclists who want to get over the bridge without dodging pedestrians, and pedestrians who want to get all those cyclists off the walkway.

Sorry everyone, there was a problem with the group at first. It should be working now; please consider joining!

I rode over last week, and it seemed as Erin said: they painted a white line along the uptown side of the bike lane -- as if cyclist needed help remembering not to get their handlebars tangled in the cables of the bridge -- and put actual lanes at the towers, so cyclists coming from opposite directions don't both try to cut the corner. The biker icons on the boards hadn't been repainted when i was there, and i saw no giant signs directing the different parties to their sides. There are small signs that explain that there is a cyclist lane and a pedestrian lane, but they remain pretty inobtrusive. I was hoping for something flashing, with the Subway announcer saying "cyclist ride with caution; pedestrians, please look before stepping into the bike lane. Thank you for crossing... the Brooklyn Bridge."

I've been thinking about this work, and, while i appreciate the effort, the timing seems to be very off. Yes, it has been a warm October and November, and yes, the cycling counts for the East River bridges is up; but soon the cold rains will be falling, and the bridge congestion will work itself out for the winter. When the cold rains turn to snow, both cyclist and pedestrian traffic will dwindle. Then, by the time the rains and cold leave, the new paint will be as faded as the old. I'm sure that there is some budget magic i can't see at work, but it seems to me that new paint serves better in the spring, when the crowds are again forming, than in the fall, when the crowds are fading.

I think it's the same as with bikes and cars: for every pedestrian who acts foolishly or even dangerously there are hundreds if not thousands more who act responsibly and who deserve our respect and consideration. This is a city of millions of people, so even a small percentage of people doing reckless things will have big consequences.

It's just a matter of the bad behavior attracting more attention -- and causing more harm, potentially -- than the good, no matter the mode of transportation. We have to combine a personal accountability with a sense of shared responsibility.

I'm not trying to be accusatory, but lets get real and try to be productive rather than combative.

Before you use figures from a study in your argument, please take the time to actually read the study so that you understand the numbers that you are citing. The 12,500 number you cited is actually a 12 hour count of cyclists entering and exiting the the center of Manhattan (defined as the NYC Bicycle Screenline Count). The number cited by the report is only a means by which to estimate trends in bicycle use from year to year and does not adequately reflect the total number of cyclists. The total number of cyclists on any given day could well be higher as the count only takes place at specifice locations and only covers a 12 hour period. Cyclists not passing through one of those points in that 12 hour period are not reflected in the count.

Given that the 12,500 number represents the number of cyclists counted in a 12 hour period, your math does not work. You can't divide this number by 365 to obtain the number of cyclists per day. In actuality, you should probably multiply the number by 365. Doing so, you end up with a total of over 4.5 million bicycle commuters per year. Of course this assumes that all those riders ride every day, which is probably not the case. My point is only that you need to understand the figures you are citing as evidence in your argument.

I walked across the bridge yesterday, on my way to pick up my bike at my friend's apartment. The bridge is in a sorry state. The entire thing needs repainted, badly. You can barely hear anything above the noise of the traffic on the lower decks.

Looking down, I did think that it would be best to dedicate one lane of the six existing to bike traffic. As a cyclist, I am not thrilled at the prospect of being closer to the raging and deafening cars, but it's better than the alternative. I don't care what any retarded anti-cyclist says; we bikers shouldn't have to bike at walking speed, and we're not all reckless. If you want guaranteed free and clear roads for cars, then YOU go (back) to the suburbs. And if your counter-argument is going to be "Actually, I'm from New York City", then you probably don't know any better and you just idealize the car culture that the rest of us have already lived with in the past. It sucks, stop idealizing it, live a healthy and sustainable life, and don't waste your time trying to stop me from living a healthy and sustainable life.

We in the cycling/bike commuting community have to help educate the naysayers and the present biking population. I ride every day of the year, if it is more than 2 blocks or less than 20 miles, I will commute to it. (and never in spandex) I don't ride on sidewalks, but I know who those trolls are talking about. Mostly it seems to be food delivery guys who, when not bringing your own ordered in lunch or dinner, are the bane of every New Yorker's existence. I was riding the closed marathon route yesterday, (on Bedford in Willburg where the road is 5 lanes wide) with only me in the street. I watched a delivery guy on the sidewalk, impatiently ring his bell to get around some pedestrians. I am not saying I at all agree with these moron Trolls from above, but part of our fight to turn this city into the bikable metropolis we know it could be, is on us to police those that offend a public who is dying to find fault with us. I think some posters pointed out very well, the fight is not with bikes, but with what the city allows cars to do, and how peds then get shorted.

We definitely need to take a lane of traffic from the cars and give it to cyclists. I use the BB all the time, but on a crowded day, the bikes and ped mixing is a terrible idea. Of course until this weekend the signage delineating space has been pretty much nonexistent.

I will note, however, that there's also such a thing as bike rage. It's an inevitable consequence of having to share the streets with cars and I sympathize. I also note a new category in this thread -- ped rage! New to me, anyway. Let's find a way to channel it creatively, fellow Walkers.

Mods: take note of offensive and abusive language coming from JF!

LOL

It's funny to watch the mental gymnastics. This discussion happens at least once a week here, and it always goes like this.

"Cyclists kill pedestrians!"
"Actually, there are no stats to prove that. In fact, the real stats don't bear that out."
"Well, they injure a lot of pedestrians."
"Again, no."
"Well, they're jerks! And Gothamist and Curbed readers say so!"

You are correct that cyclists cause a disproportionate number of injuries...to themselves. I'm more likely to get injured from a fall, a pothole, or other accident than I am to harm a pedestrian. There are simply zero statistics to prove that pedestrians are suffering from a massive wave of cyclist-caused injuries. Zero. The only stats you seem to cite are the numbers of comments on Curbed and Gothamist.

I think most of the people who read this site and who comment here aren't zealots. We're moderate advocates of livable streets, pedestrians and cyclists alike. As a cyclist, I will always cede the point that some bikers are total, 100% a-holes. They ruin it for a lot of courteous, less-attention-grabbing riders like most of the people who I know who are involved with Streetsblog. But as my rabbi likes to say, a jerk is a jerk and a mensch is a mensch. That jerk on a bike would probably be a jerk in a car if he lived somewhere else. In life, we tend to notice jerks a lot more than the nice guys.

The real thing to remember is that people who want to ride their bikes to work or around the city and people who want to walk in peace have a lot more in common with each other than either of them have with drivers. We all want clean air, less noise, safer streets, and more places to spend time outdoors. When we work together for common sense solutions, we all win!

And not crazy enough to continue a useless dialogue with those so blind that they will not see.

Bullshit, you just continued the dialogue. Crazy or not, you're an asshole who enjoys vicious attacks and loves to get the last word. Looking forward to seeing your rant deleted by the mods.

Although this site it for 'livable streets', it has been hi-jacked by an incestuous group of cycling zealots, often nasty, who never seem to change from day to day. Whenever someone comes on defending pedestrians (don't even think about cars), the bike chains come out and the Hell's Angels on two wheels surface.

Facts are, cyclists have been and will always be a tiny fraction of the population in this great city.

The small fraction of cyclists who terrorize the populace and the large fraction who disobey the law constantly may not kill like cars, but they do cause a disproportionate number of injuries and certainly a huge amount of fear and concern. How does one measure the instillation of terror and fear they create, running red lights and commandeering sidewalks, while whining they get no respect?

I expect the usual zealots to come out and attack me. Knock yourselves out. That is their modus operandi here. They'll blame pedestrians for jaywalking, ignoring the fact that when they get off their bikes, they become the very pedestrians they disdain. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

Vent all you want at me and the others who dare question your fanaticism. Fact is, most pedestrians have no respect for cyclists (visit Curbed or Gothamist, e.g.) because your solipsism precludes respect for everyone else who doesn't ride a bike AND agree with you.

For the record, I learned to ride at 8 years old in NYC, I own a bike and do not own a car. I am just not crazy enough to ride it in the city. And
not crazy enough to continue a useless dialogue with those so blind that they will not see.

It seems a good idea to me, but my wife has started riding to work some days, and she says she would stop because of the noise and fumes if she had to ride adjacent to the motor vehicles. Perhaps it wouldn't be as bad as she might imagine.

She also said she saw a cyclist cursing pedestrians reading the plaques on the "wrong" side of the tower platforms. It is hard to engineer out assholes, regardless of their mode.

This is one of my favorite silly arguments. Shorter version of the above: because people who ride bikes don't -- or in some cases, can't -- ride every day, it's silly to devote resources to encourage cycling.

If I can ride even 100 out of 365 days, that's 100 days where I'm not using gasoline to drive a car. That's 100 days where I'm not contributing CO2 to the atmosphere. That's 100 days where the money I would have spent on gas can go to local businesses. For subway riders who would rather ride, that's 100 days where there might be an extra seat for those who can't.

These all-or-nothing arguments are so silly. The point is not to get people to ride their bikes 100% of the time. The point is to give them the option to ride them when the conditions are favorable. The point is to take a multi-faceted approach to transit, one that discourages the use of the individual car if at all possible.

Here's another goodie:

"Cyclists represent a tiny portion of the population, and costs devoted to accomodating them come at the cost of other mass-transit options..."

Didn't the congestion pricing study show that only about 5% of New Yorkers use their cars to get to work? That's a tiny portion of the population and a heck of a lot of costs are devoted to accommodating drivers at the cost of other mass-transit options. (The congestion pricing defeat being the prime example.)

More to the point: pedestrians are not IMAGINING that cyclists are riding on the sidewalk more often than cars; running red lights more often than cars; and generally adding to the already stressful life of pedestrians.

Yes, you are imagining that cyclists run red lights more often than cars. Or at least, you're working from a subjective impression. My subjective impression runs counter to that: I see cars running red lights all the time. The only way to tell whose impression is closer to the truth is to actually count them.

I'd spend more time on this, but your repeated use of the fighting words "play" and "toys" indicates that you're more interested in starting a fight than in working together to find solutions. In other words, a troll.

I will say this: every cyclist is also a pedestrian, and many people who ride bicycles regularly still spend most of their travel time on foot or on transit. We know what it's like to be a pedestrian, and the vast majority of us act accordingly. So don't try to set yourself up as the Protector of the Pedestrians against the Cyclists who are All Reckless.