At least cars stop at lights and for pedestrians. They also don’t ride on sidewalks.

What planet do you live on?

Grand Street is also a favored film location, and that has not abated since the bike lane has been installed.

The facts are you “bikies” don’t observe any rules of the roads. At least cars stop at lights and for pedestrians. They also don’t ride on sidewalks. Bikes are a hazard to pedestrians in New York, ask anyone who’s ever walked on a street.

The buffer is to protect you from being doored. I agree that pedestrians need more space as well, but I think that would require removing parking from an entire side of the street. With the amazing fuss about reversing the bike lanes with parking lane, I imagine removing parking would be quite difficult.

One suggestion for simple change – turn the sewer grates perpendicular. My skinny tires got caught in a Boston grate and it scared the shit out of me. Now I’ll do anything to avoid them.

But this Grand Street bike lane is a traffic choke [of] GIGANTIC proportions as well as being dangerous.

Funny, I just read a paper that argues that the DOT could substantially reduce congestion on surrounding streets by removing all through car traffic from Grand Street west of Lafayette. But thanks for playing, traffic expert!

The great thing about this arrangement is that is uses the same amount of space as a buffered lane, while offering substantially more protection. If it feels like it’s constraining traffic more, it’s because automobile traffic is physically unable to violate the buffer and bicycle lane. If enforcement practice ever matched enforcement talk, buffered lanes would block traffic just as much as parked cars do (except for truly accidental incursions, which would still be entirely possible and lethal).

And I would talk to the moose huntress in manolos about how well branding regressive attitudes as the “real” native ones has worked out for her.

You’re probably correct that protected bike lanes are for “fearful, unskilled cyclists”, if by that you mean new cyclists. But that’s precisely the point: Without protected bike lanes and other infrastructure like this, you won’t get more people getting into cycling, which mean you won’t get safety in numbers. How is New York supposed to increase the number of cyclist commuters without making it appealing for new cyclists?

Having said that I will say that I do endorse bike lanes and bicycle friendly initiatives. THe bike lane on Lafayette is great though often unenforced.

But this Grand Street bike lane is a traffic choke if GIGANTIC proportions as well as being dangerous. I predict some accidents with vehicles crashing into the parked cars just east of Broadway.

Also (and please mark my words) some Cyclist is going get “T-Boned” when turning left (north) from this bike lane onto the narrow streets of SoHo. It almost happened to me the other day.

My opinion is that protected bike lanes are for the fearful unskilled cyclists. I say ride in traffic like real New Yorkers!

I can’t wait for these to come to my neighborhood!

It creates so much trouble and I’ve come close to getting hit by cars while trying to avoid the congestion.

Why can’t we all (cars, pedestrians, bicyclists) just get along???

I think that one of the reasons this works is that Grand is fairly wide for a one lane street. I know DOT was talking about switching 5th and 6th avenue in Brooklyn to 1-way. That might actually make sense if they did something like they did on Grand. Currently 5th ave only has sharies at the North end, which is not ideal. It’s really not fun to ride with my nine-year-old in such situations.

Drivers double park in the bike lane without even thinking about it, but won’t block a moving lane. So if there is only one moving lane, there is no double parking, and the bike lane stays clear.