Streetsblog New York City

Earlier this week, DOT released its 2012 bike counts [PDF], including a new dataset — counts from the winter months. The agency has been tallying cyclists in December, January, and February for five years, and this year released the winter counts, in addition to April-through-October counts, for the first time. The data show that warm weather counts at the DOT’s screenline (the four East River bridges below 60th Street, the Hudson River Greenway at 50th Street, and the Staten Island Ferry) plateaued in 2012, while winter counts continued a steady upward trajectory.

DOT's winter bike count was up 23 percent over a year ago, while the warm weather bike count stayed flat. Image: DOT

Overall, the screenline count from April 2012 to February 2013 rose 4 percent over the year before. These gains are smaller than annual increases since 2008, but still bring the all-year bike count to 58 percent above 2008 levels. Compared to 2011, the numbers show a small drop in bicycling during the warmer months of April through October – about half a percent – but a 23 percent gain during December, January, and February of this winter.

DOT conducted its first screenline bike count in 1980. In 1985, the agency began collecting data annually. Since 2008, DOT has set up 10 weekday counts each year between April and October, running from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. By overhauling its method, the agency could collect more reliable data. However, the screenline count remains a geographically-limited tool and doesn’t measure the full citywide cycling trend.

As part of its 2008 methodology change, the agency began collecting wintertime data, offering a fuller view of year-round patterns. These cold-weather numbers show that the difference between warm weather and cold weather cycling volumes is shrinking.

From 2008 to 2011, the winter bike count was between 40 to 47 percent of the size of the warm weather bike count. In 2012, that number jumped, with the winter count equating to 57 percent of the April-through-October count. There is still room for improvement. In Copenhagen, the winter retention rate is 80 percent.

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Bike lanes on W. 218th Street in Inwood have been replaced by sharrows. An image of the former street layout appears below. Photo: Brad Aaron

A short stretch of bike lanes in Inwood has gone the way of the disappearing bike shelter, further reducing the neighborhood’s scarce cycling infrastructure.

West 218th Street, Manhattan’s northernmost cross street to extend west of Broadway, connects Broadway and Inwood Hill Park, and delineates the southern border of the Columbia University Baker Field complex. It is part of a marked and mapped bike route for cyclists headed to and from Van Cortlandt Park, in the Bronx. Not long ago, the four blocks of W. 218th west of Broadway had bike lanes. When the street was repaved recently, the lanes were replaced by sharrows.

Said a DOT spokesperson, in an email to Streetsblog: “Following a resurfacing project on that street, DOT updated the markings to reflect current design standards, which don’t allow for a five-foot bike lane on a street that width.”

The efficacy of sharrows is a topic of debate. But if a street is deemed too narrow for bike lanes, yet wide enough for two lanes of parked cars, the issue isn’t a shortage of asphalt – it’s the decision to prioritize free curbside parking over safe space for cycling. This in a neighborhood that has few bike lanes as it is, and where DOT has responded to residents’ desire for more bike infrastructure by nipping away at what little exists.

Much is made of securing the blessing of community boards before bike infrastructure can be added, but this is not the case when bike infrastructure is removed or downgraded. We know DOT did not ask Community Board 12 before repossessing Inwood’s lone bike shelter. We asked DOT, twice, if CB 12 was consulted on the decision to remove the bike lanes from West 218th Street. We’re still waiting for an answer.

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A go-to NIMBY argument against safe street improvements is that bike lanes, pedestrian plazas, and ped refuge islands interfere with emergency responders.

We await the exclusive CBS 2 report retracting all their nonsense about safer streets slowing down emergency vehicles.

In 2009, one complainer at an event sponsored by then-Council Member Alan Gerson claimed that pedestrian islands on Grand Street “put lives in danger” by slowing down fire trucks and ambulances. Opponents of the Prospect Park West bike lane lobbed the same accusation at DOT and got Marcia Kramer to give them a megaphone. Assembly Member Dov Hikind spearheaded a successful campaign to make Fort Hamilton Parkway more dangerous for seniors based on nothing more than specious complaints from Hatzolah ambulance drivers, again amplified by Kramer.

A data set released by the city Wednesday blows another hole in what has always been a weak and cynical criticism. At an event on Randall’s Island yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg and Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano announced that in 2012, FDNY achieved the fastest average EMS response time in the city’s history. Fewer civilians died in fires last year than ever before, which the mayor and fire chief attributed to another near-record low average response time. From a City Hall press release:

The FDNY’s Emergency Medical Service averaged an ambulance response time for life-threatening medical emergencies of 6:30 — a second faster than the previous record of 6:31 set in 2011.

Structural fire response time in 2012 was 4:04, two seconds higher than last year when it was 4:02 due in part to the large call volume that occurred during and after Hurricane Sandy when the FDNY responded to nearly 100 serious structural fires.

Compared to the total amount of street space in the city, the square footage dedicated to pedestrians and cyclists in recent years is actually quite small. But there are still hundreds of places with new sidewalk extensions, pedestrian islands, and bike lanes, and at the very least the FDNY numbers suggest that new measures designed to make streets safer for walking and biking are not having the detrimental effect prophesied by the likes of Dov Hikind, NBBL, Marty Markowitz, and Marcia Kramer.

Advocates for safer streets are alarmed by a New York State DOT “blueprint” for capital investments that scarcely acknowledges walking or biking as modes of transportation.

The Tri-State Transportation Campaign noted in November that the NYS DOT document released with the file name “Two Year Capital Plan” [PDF] made virtually no mention of pedestrians or cyclists.

Biking got no ink in a document described by the New York State DOT as a blueprint for future transportation spending. Photo: @BrooklynSpoke

“Although the document uses key buzzwords — ‘multi-modal,’ ‘users of all modes,’ ‘sustainable,’ ‘improve livability,’ ‘environmental protection’ — complete streets advocates are left hanging when the document lists the ways New Yorkers get around,” wrote Nadine Lemmon, Albany legislative advocate for Tri-State.

The state DOT released the report at a time when investments in walking and cycling are “getting hit left, right and center” in New York State, according to Lemmon. The new federal transportation bill, MAP-21, resulted in a 30 percent cut in federal dedicated funding, Lemmon says, and new NYS DOT policies put bike-ped projects at a disadvantage when competing for state matching funds.

The omission of walking and biking is particularly striking given the state’s new complete streets law, which took effect in February.

In an email to Streetsblog, NYS DOT spokesperson Beau Duffy distinguished between the document and the capital plan, which will guide state transportation spending for two years.

The document submitted by NYS DOT to the NY Works Task force for consideration represented an infrastructure investment blueprint from which an investment level to support the development of the Department’s next transportation capital program would be advanced. NYS DOT’s report was intended to address four broad-based investment categories (Construction and Program Support, System Maintenance and Operations, Local Roads and Bridges, and Modal Infrastructure) and was not intended to address all of the infrastructure assets or modes under its jurisdiction.

Notwithstanding, each one of the four investment categories detailed by NYS DOT in the report provides support and opportunities for bicycle, pedestrian and safety-related improvements. The Department’s capital program of projects will be developed in coordination with the Executive and the Legislature as part of the State budget process.

Advocates say that explanation is just a long-winded way to distract from the lack of specific commitments to walking and biking as the capital plan takes shape. ”In this document, they are asking for guidance on what funding level will be approved for the next capital program,” says Lemmon. “[T]his is about the capital plan — and [Duffy] says that.”

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American cities and towns should get a leg up on using federal funds to make streets safer for biking and walking, thanks to rules enacted yesterday by the Federal Highway Administration.

Projects like this pedestrian bridge in Austin, Texas, which are built by local agencies, will get a boost from new FHWA rules. Photo: National Transportation Enhancements Clearinghouse/R.E. Martin

MAP-21, the current transportation law, was passed hurriedly enough that not all the i’s could be dotted and t’s could be crossed — and some of those details simply aren’t the business of Congress to work out. It’s up to U.S. DOT to put a finer point on many of the provisions in the bill. The agency is still struggling with a lot of them and has, admirably, opened the door to significant public input to help them put meat on MAP-21′s bones.

Some of the details came out yesterday, with FHWA’s guidance on the Transportation Alternatives program, which replaced the popular Transportation Enhancements program as a major funding source for bicycle and pedestrian projects.

America Bikes was quick with its analysis of the pros and cons of the new rules, and chief among the good news is that the guidance preserves local control over bike/ped funds by denying states eligibility for TA funds.

The disappointing provisions in MAP-21 haven’t gone away. TA money still gets split down the middle, with half going to cities and towns and the other half going to the states. And state DOTs can still have the option of either running a competitive grant program with their half of the funds, or “flexing” their entire portion to whatever they want. But states can no longer apply to their own grant programs, clearing the way for greater local access to these funds.

“If you make a contest with your own rules, and you apply to it, who’s going to win?” said Mary Lauran Hall, spokesperson for America Bikes.

Primarily, the rule means that if a state decides to use its TA funds on bike and pedestrian infrastructure, local agencies will have a greater say in how the funds get spent. But it won’t just prevent state bike/ped projects from competing against city bike/ped projects. One of the most disappointing changes in MAP-21 was that states can now spend TA funds on environmental mitigation for road building. Those tend to be big, expensive projects that can elbow crosswalks and bike lanes out of the running. This rule seemingly negates that option, unless the state finds a local agency to sponsor the environmental mitigation project.

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This diagram shows that as bike infrastructure becomes progressively more separate from vehicular traffic, the risk of injury generally declines, while the appeal of the route to cyclists tends to increase. Image: I Bike TO

A study by researchers at the University of British Columbia provides compelling new evidence that bike infrastructure makes cyclists safer — a lot safer.

The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, examined the circumstances around the injuries of 690 cyclists who wound up in emergency rooms in Vancouver and Toronto during a six month span in 2008 and 2009. Based on interviews with the cyclists, the authors plotted where the injuries occurred on each cyclist’s route. Then for each route, the injury site and a randomly-selected control site were categorized in one of 14 different street types. The authors used this method to measure the safety of each street type while controlling for other factors.

They found that wide streets with parked cars and no bike infrastructure were by far the most dangerous for cyclists. Compared to that type of road, streets with bike lanes had injury rates 50 percent lower, while the risk of injury on protected bike lanes was a whopping 90 percent lower. Interestingly, multi-use paths — or off-street trails where cyclists, pedestrians, skaters, and other non-motorized modes mix — were found to reduce injury by a comparatively modest 60 percent.

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Streetfilms’ Elizabeth Press was uptown today working on a piece about East Harlem’s long-awaited protected bike lanes. She passes along this view of the almost-rideable green lane on Second Avenue. Waiting for paint to dry has never been so thrilling.

Last year, Hilda Cohen, Ali Loxton and their neighbors picked up the pieces of a torpedoed bike lane proposal for Lafayette Avenue, showing DOT and Brooklyn Community Board 2 the community’s broad support for safer cycling on the busy street. After 1,400 signatures and countless hours of work, Lafayette Avenue from Fulton Street to Classon Avenue was recently striped with a shared lane for bicyclists.

Make Brooklyn Safer is asking Brooklynites to report dangerous intersections to a community map.

Following that victory, Cohen is aiming for safer streets in the rest of the borough. She’s launched a new initiative, Make Brooklyn Safer, and is asking all Brooklynites to help identify dangerous intersections on a map — a project called KROSS/walk, for Kids Riding on Safe Streets.

A year ago, bicycle advocacy was new for Cohen. “I had never done anything like it before,” she said. ”I just got sick of biking with my kids and getting run off the road.”

Although Lafayette Avenue is now improved, Cohen and her children travel on more than just one street. “I am amazed at how fabulous some of the bike infrastructure is in Brooklyn,” Cohen said. “But then it just kind of ends, or it feels like something was forgotten.”

“My daughter is 10 and she’s going to go into middle school,” she said. ”My judgement of a good bike lane is: will I let my kids ride in it?”

Since beginning the Make Lafayette Safer campaign, Cohen has reached out to other parents. “You ask parents in Brooklyn,” she said, and their top concern is “not abduction, it’s traffic.” With children in tow, people gain a new perspective, Cohen said.

Cohen doesn’t want her efforts to just be about bicycling. “If you don’t bike with your kids, you probably walk with your kids,” she said. ”Anybody who moves a little bit slower has a very different perception of the street.”

Cohen wanted to keep the momentum going following her success with her own neighborhood street. When working on Make Lafayette Safer, she discovered that many city agencies actually do want to know what citizens are thinking. “They do want to hear from the public — not just what the community board says we’re saying, but what people are saying,” she said.

“What I learned through Make Lafayette Safer is that you have to have documentation,” she said. Existing tools for documenting unsafe streets just weren’t cutting it. “One of the things I felt about 311 is that you were doing it in a vacuum,” Cohen said. “I always felt like, ‘What are they going to do with this? Am I going to hear anything?’”

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Photo: Andrew Hinderaker

The East Village and Lower East Side have seen new bike infrastructure flourish in the past few years, and now have some of the best city bicycling infrastructure in the country, including what will soon be the nation’s longest protected bike lanes on First and Second Avenues, several on-street bike corrals, and, coming next spring, bike-share stations blanketing the neighborhood.

The effects of these projects don’t go unnoticed. After a few years of living with streets that are safer for biking and walking, business owners have come to embrace the redesigns and appreciate their widespread benefits – calmer motor vehicle traffic, more space for pedestrians, and better visibility for all. To date, over 150 businesses, theaters, galleries, and community organizations in the East Village and Lower East Side have joined New York City’s first Bike Friendly Business District, and more are signing up every day.

When I started as an intern at Transportation Alternatives’ Bike Friendly Business program, the first business owner I spoke to was Doug Jaeger. Doug is the curator of JsX55, a gallery located on the Clinton Street bike lane in the Lower East Side. He kept thanking me for taking the time to help him request a bike rack and offered to hand out bike safety information to his customers. His response was typical of most business owners I’ve spoken to since.

Veselka’s Tom Birchard is effusive about all the bicyclists rolling by who stop in for a snack at his restaurant. “I never could have anticipated how great having bike lanes outside of Veselka would be,” Tom told me recently. “Thousands of people see my store every day that never would have before the lane went in.”

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Before and after: The Northern Boulevard bridge path entrance in Willets Point gets a makeover. Left photo: Google Maps. Right photo: Clarence Eckerson Jr.

Riders in the NYC Century Bike Tour last weekend might have noticed a recent upgrade on the bike/pedestrian path on the Northern Boulevard bridge as they navigated from Flushing to Willets Point.

The solid green line is the Flushing Bay Promenade. Connecting to the Northern Boulevard Bridge, to its east, just got easier. Image: DOT Bike Map

There is now a traffic signal where the path crosses a ramp from the Van Wyck Expressway, as well as a two-way connection beneath the Whitestone Expressway connecting to the Flushing Bay Promenade.

Before the upgrade, the location was a hostile one for cyclists and pedestrians. Drivers on the ramp received little indication that the bridge path crossed the roadway. Cyclists who exited the bridge had no bikeway to guide them to the promenade. And cyclists wishing to access the bridge from the west had to illegally ride against traffic.

Now, westbound cyclists are directed to use a new sidewalk, while eastbound cyclists have a contra-flow bicycle lane

In October 2011, DOT presented the proposal to Community Board 7′s transportation committee. The improvements were requested by Queens Borough President Helen Marshall and introduced in conjunction with a new DOT asphalt plant adjacent to the path.