Streetsblog New York City

Cyclists heading north on St. Nick can wait to cross Amsterdam Avenue in a bike box, before they enter a parking protected contra-flow lane on the other side. A pedestrian refuge island also shortens crossing distances and calms traffic. Photo: BicyclesOnly via Flickr.

DOT’s planned safety improvements for the intersection of St. Nicholas and Amsterdam Avenues are currently being installed, as shown in pictures snapped by Streetsblog reader BicyclesOnly. Major features include shorter crosswalks, additional pedestrian space, and Upper Manhattan’s first segment of physically-protected bike lane.

Up to now, the intersection has been a dangerous one. According to a DOT presentation from April, 23 pedestrians were injured there from 2006 to 2009. It’s no mystery why. With two large, fast-moving avenues crossing at an irregular angle, it was a recipe for trouble.

The redesign installs a pedestrian refuge island and a Greenstreets triangle to shorten the distance across the intersection on foot. It also turns the blocks of St. Nicholas on either side of the intersection into one-ways, headed into the intersection. Motorists who want to continue on St. Nicholas in either direction need to do a dogleg onto Amsterdam and then turn back to St. Nicholas. Here’s a map:

Image: NYC DOT

Read more…

During the Brooklyn Bridge rehab, stretches of the 14-foot-wide bike-ped path will be narrowed to 11 feet. Photo: Noah Kazis

Heads up if you bike or walk across the Brooklyn Bridge: Rehab work slated to last until 2014 is narrowing the promenade from 14 feet to 11 feet.

Right now, paint removal work has narrowed part of the bike path by a foot and a half. A similar "paint removal containment unit" will soon be installed on the pedestrian side. The narrowed section of the path, which will fluctuate between 600 and 1000 feet long, will shift as the paint removal work moves along the bridge. DOT has already installed signs telling cyclists to dismount.

For what it's worth, none of the cyclists I saw on the bridge dismounted and everything seemed to work fine. But that wasn't during peak commute hours, and the other side of the path hadn't been narrowed yet. It may be worth going even more out of your way to take the Manhattan Bridge, but that route will have its own construction headaches starting at the end of this year. 

If you have any suggestions for the Brooklyn Bridge construction managers about how to make the best of a tight space that's about to get even more cramped, email brooklynbridgeoutreach@gmail.com.

Dismount signs are up in both directions. Photo: Noah Kazis

"The Wiggle" is one of San Francisco's most beloved bike routes, guiding riders between two nasty hills. It even has its own Wikipedia entry.

It's so popular, it's hard to stand there at any time of day and not see packs of cyclists passing through! (Note: This is a camera person's dream.) Recently, after a judge partially lifted the legal injunction on new bike amenities in the city, San Francisco striped a unique combo to help cyclists safely navigate one of the Wiggle's twists. A green bike box on Scott Street -- believed to be California's first -- allows riders to safely wait and queue up for a dedicated left turn lane which runs the length of the entire next block.

Andy Thornley from the San Francisco Bike Coalition showed us around to see how it works -- and we heard from riders who voiced their appreciation.

Fresh markings are going down on the revamped approach to the Williamsburg Bridge at Delancey Street. Courtesy of Adopt-a-Bike Lane volunteer leader Marin Tockman, here's what the site looked like as of yesterday afternoon. Seems like a marked, one-block connection to the median at Suffolk Street is imminent.

Another reader informs us that Suffolk, which runs one-way north to south, is set to receive a bike box at the point before it crosses Delancey. So riding to the bridge from the north should feel a lot more convenient, safe, and "normal" than before.

I'm also digging those continuous zebra stripes across Delancey.

This StreetsWiki entry is rounding into encyclopedic form quite nicely. Andy Hamilton, DianaD (who also brought us the VMT entry last week) and Streetsblog's own Aaron Naparstek have been piecing together a detailed look at the history and effectiveness of bike boxes:

With nearly 40% of daily commuter trips taken by bike, Copenhagen, Denmark is generally considered the world's most bicycle-friendly city. Having been working with bike boxes for nearly 20 years, studies by Danish road engineers and transportation planners have found that bike boxes significantly reduce the number of crashes between right-turning motorists and bicyclists going straight through the intersection. The City of Copenhagen has concluded that bike boxes are most effective when combined with a brightly colored lane continuing straight through the intersection to help alert right-turning motorists to the fact that bicycle riders may be traveling straight through the intersection along their right side[9].

You don't have to be editor-in-chief of Streetsblog to contribute to StreetsWiki. Any member of the Livable Streets Network can jump in and edit an entry or add a new one.

We can't set this one up any better than Mr. Eckerson himself, so without further ado:

At just about any public gathering I go these days, there's usually at least one person who will come up and give me an enthusiastic "Bike Box!", based upon our earlier, popular Streetfilm. In my heart I hoped there would one day be a sequel to Bike Box, and it all came together last week while in Portland at the World Car-free Conference. Earlier this year, Portland's Office of Transportation installed many high visibility bike boxes that are filled in lime green to help cyclists avoid right hook collisions. (Note: NYC now has a few green ones as well.)

What we were unprepared for was being stopped by random cyclists who wanted to lend their collective "Bike Box!" exclamations. So watch and see all the fun improv as it flows.

Clarence and the Streetfilms crew are also looking for homegrown bike box videos to feature in the Streetfilms sidebar. To participate, post a vid of bike boxes in your city on YouTube and tag it "streetfilms."

Bike Box!

After taking an evening ride down Broadway in Williamsburg last week, Clarence Eckerson sent us a batch of pictures showing the street's nifty new road treatments. Between Kent Avenue and Bedford Avenue, Broadway now sports bike lanes, bike boxes, and pedestrian refuges with space for plantings. The changes have significantly narrowed the car travel lanes, Clarence reports. More pics after the jump.

Not only are Portland, Oregon's new bike boxes to be accompanied by a motorist safety campaign, they're also making them hard for drivers to miss at street level. Note the "Get Behind It" sign to the right.

Compare the Portland version to a New York bike box:

Could this call for a green paint line item in the livable streets fund? 

Photos: BikePortland.org/Flickr [Portland], Ian Dutton [New York]

In an attempt to improve safety at intersections in Portland, Oregon, the Department of Transportation will install the city's first bike boxes at 14 locations this spring. The city will also launch a marketing campaign, "Get Behind It. The Bike Box: Portland's New Green Space," intended to educate motorists.

As Bikeportland.org reports, large signs will be posted at intersections, and brochures offer an in-depth explanation of bike boxes. Portland DOT Project Manager Rich Newlands said, “we’re specifically concerned with the issue of encroachment. Our target audience with these signs is not the biker, it is the motorist.” 

The New York Times doesn't seem to have noticed, but DOT has been quietly rolling out dozens of bike boxes all over the city. As many cyclists don't seem to know exactly what bike boxes are or how to use them yet, StreetFilms thought the time was right for this instructional video.

Related:

• How About Two Bike Lanes Per Street?

• New Bike Lanes and Sharrows Lead to the Brooklyn Bridge
  

• New Bike Boxes Send Cyclists to the Front of the Line