The Green Lane Project will provide financial and technical assistance for cities to develop physically protected cycling infrastructure. The six to-be-determined cities will then serve as models for other American cities looking to incorporate street designs that make cycling appealing to residents of all ages.

A few major cities including New York and Washington DC have implemented protected bike lanes, but the designs are still “When a city is out on the front like this and they have a problem, it’s not always clear where they go. We’re trying to help those cities figure it out,” said Green Lane Project Director Martha Roskowski. “So they don’t have to go to Copenhagen to see how these things work.”

Bikes Belong is looking for cities that have political support for creating world-class bike infrastructure, as well as a plan in place. The organization also wants to include three “emerging cities” outside the superstars like New York and Portland, Roskowski said.

“We’re looking for six cities where they have elected officials that are on board with this,” said said. “They’ve gone through some type of a planning process. They get it. They want to do these things.”

Bike Belong sent out invitations to 33 cities that have fairly developed cycling transportation programs. Those include Houston, Memphis, Los Angeles and Columbus, Ohio, as well as San Francisco, according to Roskowski. But any city can apply, whether it was invited or not.

One city that has already been chosen is Chicago. The city’s DOT chief, Gabe Klein, is serving as an adviser on the project, as is New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. Roskowski said Bikes Belong has not determined what New York City’s role in the program will be, whether strictly as an adviser or as a participant.

The Green Lane Project will build on the work done by the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) to create a design guide for a new generation of cycling infrastructure. The Bikes Belong Foundation will be focusing most of its resources on the six chosen cities over the next two years, Roskowski said. They hope the results will be instructive to cities everywhere.

“We’re focusing on putting resources into six cities,” said Roskowski, “the other half is trying to capture what’s happening and share it with all the other cities.”

Applications for the program are due by March 9.

A rendering of what Lafayette Avenue might look like with a protected bike lane. Image: jacob-uptown

Hilda Cohen, Ali Loxton and 1,600 petition-signers are asking for a painted bike lane and a road diet on Brooklyn’s Lafayette Avenue: They’re hoping to calm traffic and improve the area’s bike network by turning one traffic lane into a bike lane, and they helped persuade Brooklyn Community Board 2 to ask NYC DOT to revisit the idea.

Streetsblog reader jacob-uptown asks: What if you reallocated that space to build a parking-protected bike lane and pedestrian refuges?

By flipping the bike lane and the parking lane, he suggests, cycling and crossing the street would be that much safer. He Photoshopped the image to demonstrate what a protected bike lane might look like on Lafayette (current conditions are below).

Like what you see?

Dwayne Marshall, an East Harlem elementary school student, was one of many neighborhood residents who stood up in support of protected bike lanes last night. Photo: Concrete Safaris

At a long and at points contentious public hearing last night, a clear majority of speakers came out in support of protected bike lanes on First and Second Avenues in East Harlem. In addition to local residents, the public health community came out in force to demolish the opposition’s claim that installing bike lanes could worsen the neighborhood’s asthma rates.

Community Board 11 had previously voted overwhelmingly in favor of the lanes, then rescinded its vote in the face of business opposition. Last night’s testimony sets the stage for another vote on the project, perhaps in January.

More than 30 people spoke in support of the bike lanes, while only seven spoke against. The larger audience, a packed room of over one hundred, seemed to have a similar proportion of supporters to opponents. Local activist James Garcia also brought a petition with 850 signatures in support of the bike lanes, an amount he said only took seven hours to gather.

The community’s elected leadership continued their sustained fight to bring safer streets to East Harlem.

“Our public roadways are a public amenity that belong to every single individual who lives in our community,” said Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito, who stayed for the full three-hour hearing. She argued that building complete streets not only protects people who already bike but also helps seniors cross the street and lets parents feel comfortable having their kids get on bikes. “I believe very strongly that this is a social justice issue. Our community doesn’t deserve any less than any other community, and our children don’t deserve any less.”

“As cycling becomes more popular among city dwellers,” State Senator José Serrano said in a prepared statement read by an aide, bike riders “deserve to have safe travel like pedestrians or drivers.”

The bike lanes had two strong bases of support in the neighborhood’s student population and in the public health community. Speaking first last night in order to be able to make it home for bedtime were seven elementary school students from the Concrete Safaris afterschool program. “Biking is good because you don’t get diabetes and pollute the air,” said a girl named Abigail. “I think East Harlem should have bike lanes. You get a ticket if you ride on the sidewalk and it’s extra-scary when you have to ride in a car lane,” argued Dwayne Marshall.

Three students from the Coalition School for Social Change, a high school located on First Avenue, also spoke in favor of the lane. They had participated in a DOT-led visioning process for the street and saw the bike lanes as part of a larger project to enliven the street and improve safety. “We would love them,” said one student. “Please approve them so that we can ride our green wheels safely to schools.”

Last night’s speakers also debated the public health implications of installing protected bike lanes. East Harlem suffers from elevated rates of asthma, diabetes and obesity, so health is a top concern for most families there. Erik Mayor, the owner of local business Milk Burger, again appealed to those concerns in arguing against the bike lanes. “The traffic conditions will get worse. It’s common sense,” he claimed. “Greater congestion creates greater emissions from vehicles.”

However, a parade of experts each testified that the lanes would, in fact, improve public health. “There is no evidence to suggest that bike lanes increase asthma rates,” said Joanne Eichel of the New York Academy of Medicine. “On the contrary, we know that riding a bike has extraordinary health benefits.”

Discussing both the expected safety improvements from the protected lanes and pedestrian refuge islands and the increased physical activity that comes from more walking and cycling, Eichel said the installation of the bike lanes would be “a major step toward improving the health of people of all ages in the community.”

La’Shawn Brown-Dudley, the deputy director of the Department of Health’s local district public health office, said her office hadn’t seen bike lanes worsen asthma anywhere in the city, but did see them as a way of encouraging healthy lifestyles. “We at the Health Department support the inclusion of these bike lanes,” she said. The bike lanes also won endorsements from Javier Lopez, the director of the New York City Strategic Alliance for Health, and two Mt. Sinai pediatricians, Kevin Chatham Stevens and Cappy Collins.

The opposition to the bike lane was fierce, if not widespread, and included every anti-bike lane trope in the book. “I love bicycles, it’s just not for First Avenue,” argued Frank Brija, the owner of Patsy’s Pizzeria who wanted to move the lanes to Pleasant and Paladino Avenues, which run for ten non-contiguous blocks east of First.

Mayor not only argued that the bike lanes would worsen traffic, but that they would block ambulances, prevent plowing, endanger senior citizens and sit unused. Rejecting evidence that the lanes work well in other countries and other New York neighborhoods, Mayor responded, “That’s not El Barrio, that’s not East Harlem, that’s not Spanish Harlem.” Mayor even cited the opposition of former transportation commissioner Iris Weinshall to the Prospect Park West bike lane to claim that DOT’s data couldn’t be trusted.

When bike lane opponent Pablo Guzman started to complain that bike lane supporters — the elected officials, DOT representatives, and students — were allowed to speak ahead of the regular order of speakers, the event briefly broke out into chaos. Charges of slander flew and the core of bike lane opposition led by Brija and Mayor stormed out of the room.

Mostly, though, the environment was one of thoughtful speeches and good nature. Harry Bobbins, a cyclist and bike lane supporter, even brought two Patsy’s pizzas in to show the bike community’s support for local businesses.

One issue raised that clearly needs more work, for example, is the parking regulation along First and Second Avenue. Though the installation of the bike lanes will include some new loading zones, the majority of the parking along the two avenues will remain unmetered alternate side parking, which DOT Borough Commissioner Margaret Forgione called “very unusual for a commercial corridor.” The lack of meters means double-parking is worse than it needs to be and finding a short-term parking space much harder. Metering the spaces “would be a tremendous benefit,” said Forgione, but not an action DOT will undertake without community support.

Altering the parking regulations was also a key post-implementation adjustment put into place along Columbus Avenue, one which helped calm an angry business community and create a popular new piece of infrastructure. “We had a learning curve,” said Mel Wymore, the former chair of Community Board 7, who spoke in favor of the bike lanes based on his experience on the Upper West Side. “I think you’ll see more and more, as bike lanes become the norm in New York City, just like in Times Square, all the businesses say business actually improves because of the life on the street.”

With a strong majority in support of the bike lanes, last night’s public hearing probably helped build some momentum for the community board to return to its previous stance of support for the project and for DOT to eventually move forward on installation. “The vast majority of the people in this room are very supportive of the lanes,” noted Forgione at the end of the hearing.

The hearing also provided a lesson for Diego Quiñones, a resident who was hit by a car while cycling on First Avenue in July. “Wow,” he said. “Change is scary, huh?”

A protected bike lane and pedestrian refuges could tame the dangerously wide First Avenue in East Harlem. Photo: James Garcia

Next Tuesday, Manhattan Community Board 11 will take up the extension of protected bike lanes on First and Second Avenue up to 125th Street in East Harlem. This is the critical safety project that the owners of Patsy’s Pizzeria and Milk Burger tried to derail at a recent CB 11 meeting by claiming that it would make asthma rates worse.

The protected bike lane proposal has a long history at CB 11. After the city backed off its initial promise to extend the East Side bike lanes to 125th Street in 2010, residents came out to a community board meeting and demanded to know why DOT wasn’t giving them the same safety improvements that downtown neighborhoods received. Supporters of the project persisted, delivering thousands of handwritten letters to City Hall laying out why protected bike lanes and pedestrian refuges will benefit East Harlem. When DOT came back to the community board this year with plans to build the project next spring, the proposal passed 47-3.

Taming the dangerously wide avenues didn’t sit well with the owners of Patsy’s and Milk Burger — Frank Brija and Erik Mayor. Both men sit on the community board and were able to engineer a vote to rescind the earlier approval of the lane. Brija and Mayor claimed, among other things, that devoting more space to biking would lead to worse asthma rates in the neighborhood.

Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito strongly backs the project, as does CB 11 chair Matthew Washington, and residents who worked hard to bring safer streets to their neighborhood aren’t giving up.

If you would like to speak up about why reclaiming space from traffic on extra-wide streets is healthy for East Harlem, here’s where to go:

Tuesday, December 6 at 6 p.m.
Taino Towers, 240 E. 123rd Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenues)
Red Carpet Theatre, 1st floor

Double parking and worn out markings plague the Hudson Street bike lane.

The full board of Manhattan Community Board 2 voted unanimously last Thursday night to endorse a community-generated plan to convert the buffered bike lane on Hudson Street to a parking-protected lane.

The new protected lane would extend the protected Eighth Avenue bike lane down to Canal Street and the Ninth Avenue bike lane to Bleecker Street.

The Hudson Street bike lane is one of the oldest buffered bike lanes in the city, and its faded stripes are often blocked by double-parked vehicles. The lane is wide enough that it could be upgraded to a protected bikeway without removing a travel lane. Parking would only need to be eliminated to install pedestrian refuge islands, popular among local residents, and mixing zones at intersections.

The resolution asks DOT to return to the community board with a plan to upgrade the lane.

“This is a common-sense conversion — it’s low-hanging fruit for DOT,” said Ian Dutton, one of two community board members who developed the proposal. “Because the buffered lane is already there, though it’s worn-away to the point of being almost invisible, there will be hardly any consequences for drivers — only shorter crossings for pedestrians, a greener and narrower-appearing street to calm traffic, and a far safer and comfortable cycling experience, maximizing the west-side bicycle corridors on Eighth and Ninth Avenues.”

Patsy's Pizza owner Frank Brija, right, claimed at a CB 11 meeting that protected bike lanes in East Harlem would make asthma rates worse. Photo: Jeff Mays/DNAinfo

After a misinformation campaign by two local business owners, East Harlem’s Community Board 11 rescinded its vote in support of plans for protected bike lanes along First and Second Avenue Tuesday night. The board will soon vote again on the project, which has the backing of local Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito.

Community Board 11 has already voiced its support for the protected bike lanes twice. In 2010, the community board expressed outrage over being first promised a protected lane, then having the Bloomberg administration recant. Then, this September they voted 47-3 to support the construction of the protected lanes, setting the stage for construction as soon as the spring.

But, as DNAinfo first reported, after restaurant owners Frank Brija and Erik Mayor organized against the project, the board voted to take back its most recent endorsement. The community board will vote again on the bike lanes after considering the businessmen’s arguments and hearing a new presentation from the Department of Transportation.

“They’re ready to do Occupy Milk Burger.”

Community leaders, including Mark-Viverito and CB 11 chair Matthew Washington, support the bike lanes and promised to ensure that the board has accurate information about the project.

Brija and Mayor, the owners of Patsy’s Pizza and Milk Burger, respectively, gathered signatures from 61 business owners in East Harlem. Mayor claimed that the businesses had not been contacted about the project, though DNAinfo’s Jeff Mays reports that DOT Borough Commissioner Margaret Forgione said her office contacted every business along First and Second Avenues, as did the board’s district manager and transportation committee chair.

The East Side project would bring protected bike lanes and new pedestrian refuges to a neighborhood with some of the most dangerous streets and severe asthma problems in the city. Mayor and Brija threw the kitchen sink at the proposal. In addition to arguing that the lanes would remove parking spaces and be underused, Mayor and Brija claimed that the bike lanes would increase congestion and actually worsen asthma rates in the neighborhood.

“There was a lot of confusion and misinformation provided that night,” Mark-Viverito said of Tuesday’s vote. She added that she’d personally be working with the board leadership to make sure that CB members get the best information possible about the effect of bike lanes.

“I don’t see this as any sort of slowing down of the process to get the protected bike lanes we want and need in East Harlem,” she said. “The vote was not to say no to the bike lanes.”

Added Mark-Viverito’s spokesperson, “There is a strong commitment on the part of Council Member Mark-Viverito, the Department of Transportation and the Community Board to work collectively to move this forward. The Council Member is still 1,000 percent behind ensuring that we have protected bike lanes in East Harlem.” Mark-Viverito has rallied for the bike lanes on the steps of City Hall and spoken on the issue at previous community board meetings.

Washington, who voted against rescinding the board’s prior vote for the lanes, blasted bike lane opponents for using deceptive rhetoric to make their case. “People are making inaccurate statements about the project and the process and they need to be clear about what it is they are looking for,” he told DNAinfo. “The flow of misinformation is not helping anyone.”

Local residents decried the board’s decision to walk back its support for safety. “It’s not fair,” said Dina Montes, who rides in the neighborhood with her 4-year-old daughter. “They’re putting these people’s safety on hold because these two people don’t like having bike lanes in front of their shops.”

James Garcia said he’s launched a petition drive to counter Mayor and Brija’s efforts and is already receiving an enthusiastic response from his neighbors. “They’re ready to do Occupy Milk Burger,” he said. “You have these wide streets where people speed down. It becomes a hazard not only for cyclists but children and the elderly.”

Upgrading the Hudson Avenue bike lane would extend the protected lanes on both Eighth and Ninth Avenues.

The transportation committee of Manhattan Community Board 2 voted unanimously on Tuesday to endorse a community-generated plan to upgrade the Hudson Street bike lane to a parking-protected lane.

Right now, Hudson Street has a buffered bike lane. It’s one of the oldest in the city according to Ian Dutton, a former vice chair of the transportation committee, who proposed the upgrade along with community board member Maury Schott and Mike Epstein, who works in the area. But the lane has become inadequate for safe travel. The paint on the street has been totally worn away and the lane is constantly blocked by double-parked vehicles.

Since it is already buffered, however, upgrading to a parking-protected lane is easy. “All we’re doing is flipping it,” said Dutton. “It has no impact on moving lanes — they stay right where they are.” The only trade-off for the safety upgrade is a few parking spaces that would need to be removed for new mixing zones and pedestrian refuge islands.

“All the statistics point to the fact that parking protected zones reduce both pedestrian, bike and vehicle passenger injuries,” said Schott. On Eighth Avenue, total street injuries fell between 18 and 35 percent after the upgrade. On Second Avenue, injuries fell 11 percent while the number of weekday cyclists using the lane more than tripled.

Hudson Street effectively runs in two segments. Above Abingdon Square, Hudson runs southbound, connecting Ninth Avenue to Bleecker Street. Below the square, Hudson runs north until it becomes Eighth Avenue. If installed alongside existing DOT plans for bike lanes in Midtown, therefore, the upgrade would create continuous protected lanes on Eighth Avenue from 59th Street to Canal Street and on Ninth Avenue from 59th to Bleecker.

Nearly every member of the public who spoke at the meeting voiced support for the proposal; a straw poll of attendees showed seven in favor and one opposed. Testimony submitted by e-mail weighed overwhelmingly in favor of the lane.

Safety — for both cyclists and pedestrians — was the top issue. CB 2  member Denise Collins,  said she worried for parents and children cycling to Hudson Street’s P.S. 3. “There are people who don’t even know that we have a bike lane on Hudson, it’s just totally washed away,” she said. “I hold my heart in my hands sometimes when I see these people on bikes.”

Ellen Peterson-Lewis, a public member of CB 2′s environment committee, noted that the neighborhood has a growing senior population, a group she included herself in. “To have that flip and to have that pedestrian island there,” she said, “I do think this is an excellent idea.”

The double parking and worn out markings that plague the Hudson Street bike lane are visible here.

Ellen Baer, the president of the Hudson Square Connection, a local BID, expressed opposition to the proposal. Though the BID has supported a number of important improvements to local streets, Baer asked the committee to put off a decision on the bike lane until she could forge some consensus among her members. Dutton later reported that he had heard some BID members were thrilled about the proposed upgrade while others were vehemently opposed.

The transportation committee debated delaying the issue or endorsing a bike lane upgrade only above Houston Street, north of the BID’s jurisdiction, but decided to move forward with the entire thing. “It’s going to be January or February before DOT even comes back to us,” argued Dutton, which would provide plenty of time for negotiations between the BID, DOT and the community board. The committee also requested that DOT revise parking regulations in the area to reduce double parking.

The full board of CB 2 will vote on the proposal on November 17.

More than 55 percent of pedestrians surveyed on the Upper West Side thought the Columbus Avenue bike lane improved safety. Image: Office of Gale Brewer

The Columbus Avenue bike lane is both safe and popular, according to two assessments released at a meeting of Community Board 7 last night. Representatives from the Department of Transportation presented data showing that the street redesign reduced the number of crashes on the street by 34 percent, while 73 percent of Upper West Siders surveyed by City Council Member Gale Brewer said they think the bike lane and pedestrian refuge islands improved the street.

The bike lane on Columbus was installed last year between 77th Street and 96th Street following a vote of approval from CB 7. When some merchants complained about parking and loading issues after the lane was installed, a task force made up of local elected officials and community leaders put forward a series of tweaks to the design.

Along that mile of the Upper West Side, safety has greatly improved, according to a new evaluation of the redesign’s effects from DOT [PDF]. Crashes have decreased by 34 percent where the bike lane was installed, and total traffic injuries are down 27 percent. On the blocks of Columbus Avenue to the north and south of the bike lane, 29 percent of motor vehicles were clocked speeding, but only between eight and 17 percent of vehicles on the stretch of Columbus with the bike lane were measured going faster than 30 miles per hour.

In addition to improving safety, installing the bike lane has also encouraged cycling on Columbus Avenue. Bike counts are up by 56 percent on weekdays, while sidewalk riding has plummeted. Double-parking, too, is way down.

The safety benefits of the bike lane have not gone unnoticed. Of the 908 people surveyed by Brewer, 40 percent said the current design works for all users, 33 percent said it was a good start but needed some changes to work better, and only 27 percent said it doesn’t work well. Around 45 percent of those surveyed thought the redesign made it safer to cross Columbus, while 27 percent felt less safe.

Brewer’s survey isn’t a scientific poll of the neighborhood, but did reach a broad segment of the population. Her office put the poll online and publicized it to senior centers, merchants, local business associations, AAA, and delivery cyclists.

While every group surveyed said that the redesign made them feel safer, opinions varied based on the way respondents normally got around. Pedestrians said, by a margin of 56-32, that it increases pedestrian safety, while drivers said it increased driver safety by a slimmer margin of 48-36. More than 90 percent of cyclists said the bike lane made their trips safer.

Based on the survey, Brewer called for a few additional tweaks to the lane, including additional signage promoting safe behavior by all street users and better enforcement of parking rules by the police.

“We all know that change is hard,” said Council Member Brewer, “but 70 percent of our respondents think that the bike lane is going in the right direction.”

Bike traffic on the Eighth Avenue protected bike lane. Photo: BicyclesOnly/Flickr

By a vote of 26 to 10 Wednesday night, Manhattan Community Board 4 endorsed DOT plans to extend the protected bike lanes on Eighth and Ninth Avenue from 34th Street to 59th Street. The bike lanes will improve safety for all users on some of Midtown’s most chaotic streets, which pass by Penn Station, the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and the Lincoln Tunnel entrance.

Though there were objections from a couple of businesses when the CB 4 transportation committee discussed the project last month, last night only one person testified about the lanes.”I’m just someone who got injured and started biking to heal the injury,” said Detta Ahl. “I found it was a good way to get around the city. I want to get around the city safely.”

Ahl also pointed out that the redesigned streets will improve safety for pedestrians and motorists as well as cyclists; further south on Eighth Avenue, a similar redesign reduced traffic injuries for all street users by 35 percent.

On the community board, opponents of the bike lane focused on what they saw as bad behavior by cyclists. Calls for additional education and enforcement of traffic laws earned loud applause.

Construction will take place in two phases next year. The lanes will be extended to 42nd Street in the spring and to 59th Street in the fall.

Senator Chuck Schumer, a frequent cyclist, walks his bike by the Prospect Park West bike lane, which he told bike lane opponents he does not like. Image: Brooklyn Spoke.

Throughout the Prospect Park West bike lane saga, intense speculation has surrounded New York’s senior senator, Chuck Schumer. Both his wife, Iris Weinshall, and his daughter, Jessica Schumer, played leading roles in the fight against the redesign, but Schumer’s office remained studiously silent throughout. “I am not commenting,” Schumer repeatedly told the New York Times when asked about the bike lane this March; in later press conferences, his staff barred reporters from asking about it.

Despite his public attempt to remain neutral, Schumer told opponents of the bike lane that he personally opposed it, according to correspondence obtained by Streetsblog via freedom of information request.

Members of the anti-bike lane group “Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes” also attempted to use the senator’s political power and network of contacts to their advantage. They exploited his connections to get access to top political consultants and hoped to use his clout to pressure local elected officials. David Seifman at the Post has reported that Schumer asked City Council members what they would do about the bike lane. Schumer may also have discussed the project with Mayor Bloomberg himself, according to a message from one leading bike lane opponent.

Schumer apparently revealed his opposition to the bike lane to NBBL leader Louise Hainline, who lives in the penthouse of the same Prospect Park West apartment building the senator calls home. “Schumer can’t help much with this issue, but I have seen him and he doesn’t like the lane,” wrote Hainline to two bike lane opponents on June 29, 2010. Though Hainline said Schumer “can’t help much,” NBBL repeatedly attempted to use his connections and clout to aid their efforts.

Bike lane opponents sought to wield the senator’s political influence to pressure local elected officials. Specifically, Hainline believed that she could leverage her Schumer connection to win the backing of City Council Member Steve Levin.

In an e-mail to a personal friend on December 24, 2010, Hainline reported on her recent meetings with members of the City Council. She came away believing Council Member Brad Lander wouldn’t turn against the lane, but that Levin might. Wrote Hainline: “Stephen Levin is a protégée of Vito Lopez, who if you are reading the papers is in some hot water, so Levin’s looking for some god father, and may want Vacca or Schumer to protect him, maybe both.”

It’s not clear whether Hainline’s plan for Levin was based on her recent conversation with him or was simply wishful thinking. Levin has not taken a public position on the bike lane, even when asked about it directly.

No written evidence of Schumer’s direct lobbying on the bike lane has surfaced, but one email is quite suggestive. On December 3, 2010, bike lane opponent and former deputy mayor Norman Steisel wrote to Weinshall: “Also heard abt a purported conversation betwn the mayor and our sr. senator you might find of interest.” In all the documents obtained by Streetsblog, the extent of Steisel and Weinshall’s communications was limited to the Prospect Park West bike lane, suggesting that the conversation “of interest” between Schumer and Bloomberg was likely about the same topic.

Weinshall, Hainline, and Jessica Schumer also tried to enlist a veteran of Chuck Schumer’s press shop. On July 12, 2010, Jessica Schumer reported on the latest ally her family had recruited in their fight against the bike lane: one of the state’s top media consultants. “My mom talked with Risa Heller on Saturday night – she used to do my dad’s press and then went on to work for the governor and now does PR work,” she wrote. “She said she would be willing to help us out a little – so I can get in touch with her if you would like.” Hainline said that she’d be interested, and Schumer agreed to contact Heller.

A few days later, Hainline proposed smearing Transportation Alternatives and Streetsblog for receiving funding from Mark Gorton, who at the time was enmeshed in a lawsuit with the record industry over his Limewire file-sharing software. “I’ll take a look at it this weekend,” Jessica Schumer told Hainline, copying Weinshall, “and will see what risa thinks of that angle as well.”

Nine days after Jessica Schumer first reached out to Heller, Hainline told two NBBL members: “We also have some advice from a media person who cannot be public but was recommending a press conference when we file the suit.”

Heller was the only media professional mentioned in the NBBL communications obtained by Streetsblog during this period, but she specifically denied that this email referred to her. “Iris reached out to me and as much as I love her I declined to get involved,” Heller told Streetsblog.

Schumer’s current staff appear to be keeping a close eye on reports that link him to the bike lane opposition. Of note is an email from Weinshall to two of Schumer’s top staffers, Martin Brennan and Mike Lynch. Brennan is Schumer’s New York state director, Lynch his chief of staff. The content of the email was of little consequence — a friend sent a clip from a Streetsblog article about the Schumer family to Weinshall, who forwarded it on to Brennan, Lynch and Jessica Schumer — but it was sent to their Senate email addresses, suggesting official business.

There remains much that we don’t know about Schumer’s involvement in the fight against the bike lane. We don’t know whether he played a role in convincing Gibson Dunn partner Randy Mastro to provide ample legal resources at no cost for the lawsuit backed by his wife and daughter. We don’t know what the senator said about the bike lane to City Council members or to Mayor Bloomberg. There is solid evidence, however, that Chuck Schumer, like the rest of his family, opposed the Prospect Park West bike lane, and that his political stature was vital to the fight against it.

As Noah reported in September, the lanes will offer a much safer route for commuters, delineating protected space on wide avenues sorely in need of taming, particularly near Penn Station, the Port Authority, and the Lincoln Tunnel (though two blocks of Eighth in front of the Port Authority will not be protected). According to DOT, eight pedestrians and one motorist were killed in traffic crashes on this stretch of Eighth Avenue since 2005, while six pedestrians were killed on Ninth. Similar safety improvements on a stretch of Eighth Avenue further downtown precipitated a 35 percent drop in injuries for all street users.

The lanes got the go-ahead from the CB 4 transportation committee last month, but true to form the anti-bike minority got the headlines. As always, the more friendly voices heard on this vital measure for safer cycling and walking, the better.

Wednesday’s meeting will be held at Roosevelt Hospital, 1000 Tenth Ave., at 6:30 p.m. The full agenda is here.

They’re back.

Opponents of the Prospect Park West bike lane filed an appeal in their unsuccessful lawsuit against the city yesterday, hoping for a second chance to rip out the safety-enhancing redesign or, perhaps more likely, attract a few more months of headlines. As Streetsblog previously reported, the bike lane opponents will have even lower odds of winning at the appellate level than they did with their initial lawsuit, which never had much of a shot of victory in the first place.

The motion from pro bono attorney Jim Walden, who despite representing a group called “Neighbors For Better Bike Lanes” is giving quotes to Reuters about why bike lanes aren’t ever practical in big cities, focuses on the legal argument why his clients have a right to appeal and can be read above.

Said city attorney Mark Muschenheim in a statement, ”This development isn’t surprising. We are confident that our win will be upheld on appeal. The lawsuit was untimely to begin with, which the Court clearly recognized in dismissing it. The bike path’s installation was an entirely proper, thoroughly considered project that continues to enhance the safety of PPW and remains widely enjoyed by the community.”

We’ll have continuing coverage of the lawsuit as it again winds its way through the court system.

The Second Avenue bike lane in the East Village. Photo: DNAInfo

Last night, the full board of Manhattan Community Board 8 voted in favor of building a protected bike lane on First Avenue between 60th Street and 96th Street.

Once construction is finished, the lane will be one segment of a complete street running from Houston to 125th with Select Bus Service, protected bike lanes and pedestrian refuge islands (though the cyclist protection and pedestrian islands disappear near the Queensboro Bridge). On the Upper East Side, the Second Avenue lane will be on hold until subway construction is complete, but the First Avenue lane could be in place as early as this fall. In East Harlem, construction will start on Second Avenue next spring.

CB 8 approved the project by a vote of 20-11-1. That total masks the closeness of the vote, however. According to community board member Scott Falk, with two people left to vote the total stood at 16-13-1. Since resolutions need more than half of all voters to support them to pass, had both those two people voted no, the resolution would have failed. Neither did, though, and once the resolution had passed, two nays switched their votes to join the winning side.

The biggest issue was how the bike lane would affect local businesses’ ability to make deliveries, said Falk. “This was going to force triple parking, as they put it.” That argument was ultimately defeated by an appeal to the life-saving effects of protected bike lanes. Said Falk, “This isn’t about bicycles. It’s about safety by design.”

Bike traffic on the Eighth Avenue protected bike lane. Photo: BicyclesOnly/Flickr

The redesign will make cycling a more attractive option to access the city’s biggest employment center and the theater district, and it will bring badly needed safety changes to the wide and chaotic west side avenues where they pass by Penn Station, the Port Authority, and the Lincoln Tunnel. Since 2005, eight pedestrians and one motorist were killed in traffic crashes on this stretch of Eighth Avenue, according to DOT; six pedestrians were killed on Ninth. Similar safety improvements caused traffic injuries for all street users to drop by 35 percent on a stretch of Eighth Avenue further downtown.

On each avenue, the space for the protected bike lane and pedestrian refuge islands will come from narrowing the existing travel lanes by two feet each, not removing a travel lane, DOT officials said. With the addition of left-turn space in the form of mixing zones — where bike traffic and turning cars overlap — and signalized turn bays at major intersections, traffic capacity will in fact increase on Eighth and Ninth Avenues. “If anything, speed should actually improve,” said DOT Borough Commissioner Margaret Forgione.

Construction would occur in two phases. The lanes would be built south of 42nd Street in the spring of next year with the northern sections completed that fall. The full board of CB 4 will meet to vote on the proposal next month.

Unlike the bike lanes on the east side, DOT’s plans do not call for the lanes to run without protection for any significant distance. Between 40th and 41st Streets on Eighth Avenue, however, the protected lane will become a buffered lane running to the right of the Port Authority cab stand. The plastic bollards currently in place there will remain to the right of the bike lane, however, providing some protection at that location. On the following block, cyclists would share the second lane from the left with motor vehicles turning left.

The need for this design stems from the double left-turn lanes onto 42nd Street, said DOT bike and pedestrian direct Josh Benson. “If the bike lane was between those two left lanes and the curb,” he said, “it would be very difficult to go straight on your bike.”

Many cyclists and community board members urged DOT to find some solution that protected cyclists as they passed through those two dangerous blocks. Jay Marcus, the committee co-chair, told DOT that perhaps they should totally reimagine the corner of Eighth and 42nd, “similar to what you did in Times Square.” In the committee’s resolution, they asked that DOT try to improve the design of those two blocks.

The committee also requested that DOT widen the sidewalks on Eighth Avenue in order to ensure that the bike lanes don’t get filled with pedestrians overflowing off the curb. “You’ll have all those commuters walking to the Port Authority,” worried Lourdes Calderon. Benson said that it was possible that something could be worked out for the areas above 42nd Street, where DOT would have some extra time to develop a plan.

Reactions to the plan from the public were generally positive, but a significant number of west side residents worried that law-breaking cyclists were endangering pedestrians. Many of them cited news reports about the Hunter study of bike-on-pedestrian injuries to make their case. A pair of local business owners, who got some outsized attention in this DNAinfo report, also claimed that the bike lane would make parking and loading impossible at their establishments. The committee accepted DOT’s word that the agency would add adequate loading zones and work with the NYPD on increasing law enforcement, and asked for progress reports on those issues.

When complete, the bike lanes and pedestrian refuge islands will run from 96th Street to 125th Street on both avenues. Construction will start on Second Avenue, where there is currently no bike infrastructure, and will not cover Second Avenue south of 100th Street until Second Avenue Subway construction is complete.

CB 11′s transportation committee approved the plans by a vote of 5-1-2 earlier this month. East Harlem residents and elected officials had been promised the lanes last year, but when revised plans had construction limited to below 34th Street, they fought hard to get the lanes built in their neighborhood.

Wolfson thanked City Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito for her support of the lanes. “Yeah!” she responded. “Protected bike lanes benefit all in our community.”

We’ll update this post with more information on last night’s vote as it becomes available.

The Union Square Partnership interviewed local business people to see what they thought of the redesign of traffic patterns around the square. Each green dot represents a business that liked the changes, each blue dot signifies no opinion, and the three red dots represent businesses opposed.

It’s been a year since DOT made more room for pedestrians and cyclists around Union Square, and a recent survey shows a neighborhood happy with its new public spaces.

Feedback from businesses and residents led DOT to back away from its original proposal to, among other things, close two blocks of Union Square West to drivers during part of each day. Recognizing that remaining opponents were hopelessly intransigent, the local community board ultimately approved the plan by a vote of 24-1. By last September the changes were in place. In addition to installing roomy new public plazas, the city extended the protected bike lane on Broadway through 17th Street and around Union Square.

In August the Union Square Partnership collected surveys from 60 area businesses asking what they thought of the redesign. Thirty-six said it was a “good thing,” 21 had no opinion and three thought it was a “bad thing” [PDF]. Even the three who disapprove admitted that it hadn’t hurt their business. According to the New York Times, no businesses or store managers complained to elected officials, either.

“The vast majority of visitors in the district arrive on foot and public transportation, therefore the enhanced pedestrian environment has made the area more attractive to shoppers and diners,” explained Jennifer Falk, the executive director of the Union Square Partnership.

Most important, the streets are safer. On Broadway north of the square, for example, DOT reports the share of vehicles speeding dropped from 28 percent to 12 percent after the redesign [PDF]. Pedestrians crossing 17th Street at Broadway were given more than twice as much time to cross a street that is almost half as wide as before.

At the same time, motor vehicle speeds were not negatively affected by the changes. Taxi speeds fell by four percent on Fifth Avenue but rose by 14 percent on 18th Street, where the worst congestion was predicted by project opponents. On Park Avenue, speeds rose by marginal amounts.

Business people who were previously opposed came around to the plan, said Falk. “Their major concerns — increased traffic congestion, difficulty finding parking, delivery problems — never came to fruition,” she said. “Vehicles adapted to the new traffic patterns without disrupting normal flows.”

A broader Partnership survey, which included area residents, employees and visitors, found that 74 percent liked the new traffic pattern, with only 16 percent opposed.

DOT made some alterations after installation and plans to make more adjustments. Already, a few signals have been re-timed. A traffic calming neckdown was removed at 17th and Park while another was shaved down to make for easier vehicular turns at Broadway and 22nd. To alleviate crosstown traffic congestion, DOT is considering installing additional turn lanes at certain locations.

Photo: Civitas

Now that the lane, which runs from 77th to 96th Street, is a year old and residents have had some time to get used to it, City Council Member Gale Brewer has launched a survey to gauge the neighborhood’s reaction. Brewer supports the lane but wants to see if there are ways to improve the street further.

If you live, work, shop or otherwise travel on the Upper West Side, you can fill out Brewer’s survey here. It only takes a few minutes. The questions ask how the bike lane has affected safety, lawfulness, activity and comfort among all street users. It offers space for open-ended remarks on what works well and what ought to be changed.

Given the Columbus Avenue lane’s relative isolation — it has no north-south connections at either end and doesn’t have a protected northbound pair — it’s important to expand this safe cycling design and integrate it into the city’s network of protected bikeways. Filling out this survey can help move that process along.

If DOT is out to impede drivers, why isn't this a protected bike lane? Photo: Noah Kazis

Ryan Russo, the assistant commissioner for traffic management at DOT, said as much at last night’s Community Board 8 meeting. When cyclist Paul Gusmorino asked whether it would be safe to install protected lanes on First Avenue on either end of Midtown but leave cyclists vulnerable in a shared lane between 49th and 59th Streets, Russo explained the decision to install shared lanes “reflects the reality that we’re dealing with in having to tailor the design to traffic.” The entire project, he said, is designed “so that we’re not going to cause a traffic nightmare.” Later, when a bike lane opponent argued that the narrowing of the street might slow down traffic speeds, Russo referred back to the midtown gap in the protected bike lane to show DOT wouldn’t let that happen.

Bus improvements are similarly constrained by DOT’s unwillingness to risk greater congestion. Russo explained last night that where the First and Second Avenue Select Bus Service runs in the curbside lane, as opposed to the more effective offset configuration, the intent was to keep travel lanes available for existing traffic volumes.

Last May, DOT bike and pedestrian director Josh Benson also said that the Midtown protected bike lane gap was created in deference to drivers. “We need all five lanes for cars,” he said. On the Queensboro Bridge, as well, bus improvements were held back by the mandate to not slow private vehicles.

From a budgetary perspective, too, the projects on First and Second Avenues devote more resources to private vehicle travel than to bike or bus improvements. As part of the work, the streets will be repaved, which Russo said costs 15 to 30 times as much as the construction of the bike lane and pedestrian islands. “The cost is a fraction of just filling the potholes,” he explained.

That’s consistent with regular operations for DOT. As Matt Chaban reported in the New York Observer, under Sadik-Khan, DOT’s capital spending has increased by 50 percent, but only 1 percent of it goes to bike lanes and pedestrian plazas.

When finished, First Avenue will boast six miles of camera-enforced bus lanes and six miles of parking protected bike lanes. It’s as progressive a redistribution of street space as has been implemented anywhere in the city, yet even there, DOT won’t tamper with traffic capacity. Janette Sadik-Khan isn’t a radical with a war on cars; she’s an innovative department head, unafraid to try new things, who’s found an enormous amount of low-hanging fruit.

The transportation committee of CB 8 voted to upgrade the buffered bike lane on First Avenue, here blocked by a line of trucks, to a parking protected bike lane. Photo: BicyclesOnly via Flickr.

On the Upper East Side, community board members are willing to vote for safer streets, so long as they can vent about cyclists beforehand.

After a discussion that emphasized bad bike behavior, the transportation committee of Community Board 8 voted 9-2, with one abstention, to support the construction of a protected bike lane on First Avenue from 60th Street to 96th Street.

Above 72nd Street, First Avenue already has a buffered bike lane. Upgrading to a protected lane requires only that DOT flip the lanes for bikes and parking, while maintaining existing lanes for drivers. Between 60th and 72nd, though, there isn’t any bike lane at all. Filling that gap between the shared lane through Midtown and the buffered lane further north would be DOT’s top construction priority, said Ryan Russo, DOT assistant commissioner for traffic management. Construction could start as early as this fall.

DOT is neither building nor presenting plans for a new bike lane on Second Avenue, and won’t until Second Avenue Subway construction is complete years from now. Even in the few blocks below the construction zone, where DOT had originally planned to paint a shared lane, Russo said the combination of subway and water tunnel construction meant that no changes would be made.

To some extent, the limited scope of the redesign contributed to the committee’s endorsement. “I see 72nd to 96th Street as a no-brainer,” said committee co-chair Jonathan Horn. “There’s already a bike lane there. We’re trading a few parking spaces to get pedestrian islands which shorten the crossing for seniors and other people.” A 2009 resolution from the community board said that if bike lanes were to be built on the Upper East Side, they should be protected lanes.

Even so, for many committee members, the idea of drawing more cyclists to the neighborhood was tough to tolerate. “Unless you enforce the laws and make the penalties enough to deter people from doing what they’re currently doing, you should not be encouraging bicycling,” said board member Elizabeth Ashby.

Barry Schneider told the story of a friend of his who was hit by a cyclist 20 years ago and urged that the state register cyclists. “Be an advocate for that,” Schneider told DOT. “Make them part of the vehicular culture.”

“The bike lanes are preceding education,” complained another board member. “You have given us the perfect picture to look at, but in reality it’s really not a perfect picture.” She asked for a public service announcement on safe cycling, and when informed that “Don’t Be A Jerk” ads were already running demanded far wider distribution.

Many board members who complained about cyclists nevertheless voted for the lanes. In the end, the proven increase in safety from the new design further downtown and the desire for pedestrian refuge islands carried the day. In fact, a proposed compromise put forward by Horn, in which the protected bike lanes would be built north of 72nd while a shared lane would be built south of 72nd, was shot down because it wouldn’t improve pedestrian safety.

“In our area, I’m one of them, there are more and more seniors,” explained Judy Schneider. “I like having a shorter street to cross.”

Public testimony, which was overwhelmingly in favor of the protected lanes, surely helped swing some votes in favor of the lanes as well. “It is very tough to go on the streets of Manhattan and without having a protected bicycle lane, it is very dangerous,” said Upper East Side bike commuter Steven Moss. He explained that while he rides in the protected lanes further down on First and Second, uptown he often ends up riding in the Select Bus Service lane for safety reasons, slowing down transit riders in the process. “I’m not supposed to be there,” admitted Moss, “but what is a bicyclist to do?”

The committee’s resolution does request additional cyclist enforcement on First and Second Avenue (specifically praising the 19th precinct for its borough-leading level of bike citations), as well as a stronger education campaign. The committee will discuss a proposal to require licenses for all bike riders at next month’s meeting.

The full board of Community Board 8 meets to vote on the issue on September 21.

The transportation committee of CB 11 voted to bring the complete street design for First Avenue, shown here in the East Village, to East Harlem. Photo: NYC DOT.

The transportation committee of Manhattan Community Board 11 wants to see protected bike lanes on First and Second Avenues, which the city promised for East Harlem last year and then delayed. Joined by City Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito, who spoke strongly in favor of the project, the committee endorsed plans to build protected lanes between 96th Street and 125th Street on both avenues in a vote of 5-1, with two abstentions.

Officials from the Department of Transportation presented plans to build parking-protected bike lanes on both avenues to the committee last night, saying they would have the same design as on First Avenue south of 34th Street. On that stretch of road, said DOT, the protected bike lanes and pedestrian islands have greatly improved safety — injuries are down 37 percent there — without leading to increased congestion.

2010 conditions on First Avenue at 117th Street. Photo: James Garcia.

DOT bike and pedestrian director Josh Benson said that construction could start as soon as next spring, though he didn’t commit to building out all thirty blocks of each avenue at once. Because First Avenue already has a buffered bike lane, he said, work would start on Second. No work would be done in the Second Avenue Subway work zone south of 100th Street until construction there was complete.

Mark-Viverito took the floor immediately after DOT’s presentation to highlight her support for the plan. City streets need to balance the needs of everyone in the community, she said, “and bikers are a part of that.” In East Harlem, she argued, the need for safe cycling is particularly acute: The neighborhood has high obesity and asthma rates as well as a large senior population in need of shorter road crossings. She also noted that East Harlem was only getting these lanes after being dropped from the early rounds of construction and added back in after sustained activism from the community.

Mark-Viverito also forcefully laid out the case for parking-protected bike lanes. “I don’t think what we have in this community are bike lanes,” she said. “They don’t offer a level of protection and they’re not respected, since they’re just painted on the ground.”

The debate wasn’t unanimous — one community board member worried that with the bike lane, a double-parked car would narrow an avenue to only two through lanes, and a local health teacher complained about the 166 parking spaces that would be removed in the plan — but most who spoke were in favor of the plan.

“I’m not only a cyclist but a mom with four kids who all cycle, and also a driver. It makes complete sense,” said committee chair Peggy Morales, who voted for the lanes, after the meeting. Morales was only a block away when local cyclist Marcus Ewing was doored and killed by a truck last October. “We should be able to go cycling without having to take our lives into our own hands,” said Morales. “This is long overdue.”

The full board of CB 11 will vote on the bike lanes on September 20th. The transportation committee of the Upper East Side’s CB 8 will vote on the lanes in their district tonight.