“strong opposition . . . to any proposals to remove parking, shrink driving lanes or reduce speed limits.”

A bike lane in or near the *center* of a wide, NYC-style, one-way avenue would not “remove parking,” nor would it require the City to “reduce speed LIMITS” (although I suggest it would reduce SPEEDS of cars, even without changing the speed limit on the books). It’s a winner, I tell you.

Why, Mike, I’m perfectly delighted that you ask. I’ll e-mail you pictures, but in fact you ask two very pithy questions which relate to two essential elements of the design, and I’ll answer you here.

1. Cyclists at ALL points of intersections would get a green light several seconds before surrounding cars so they could turn or proceed safely before cars begin competing with them.

(So in fact, it’s not just a simple bike lane redesign, it would require new traffic lights or other controls.)

2. Yes, motorists would be allowed to cross the lane as needed, but not travel in it. My observations of motorist behavior on Manhattan’s avenues makes me think that’s not as unrealistic as it might sound.

Physically separated lanes are wonderful, and I’ve watched that film and am extremely impressed; I just worry that in some instances physically separated lanes are not feasible, and worse, that if the city built some physically separated lanes, they wouldn’t be big enough (or would be subjected to some other unforeseen trivialization), and they’d expend all the city’s current political will to give something to cyclists. This is not a knock on the amazing work on physically-separated lanes by Clarence and others that Streetsblog has featured; I just think a center lane is another scenario that deserves some consideration.

Maybe it’s just the weather. . . but it really seems like there is a lot more biking going on. Took 6 trips in Midtown and uptown today and it seemed like more often than not there were 2 or more bicyclists per block (even putting aside the apparent delivery folk). I don’t remember it being like that last spring. It’s a shame that transpo mode measurement is so infrequent and crude.

The 2030 plan puts bike use at 0.5% of all trips. This is based on the 1997 NYMTC household travel survey of 11000 some people. This seems low, but who really knows? Even 15 years ago, TA found 10% of vehicles in the Villages were bikes, Midtown 8%.

Getting a better handle on bike use is very important if we are to measure changes and figure out what kind of injury and death rates NYC cyclists suffer. Currently it’s hard to have a goal of doubling cycling when we dont know how many people ride. Maybe the best goals would be seasonal corridor goals rather than overall numbers. (For instance, 15% of vehicles on 5th Ave in the Slope) One thing for sure is that the city should be counting cycling trips within neighborhoods, not just to the CBD — which are longer, harder trips.

I second that as well. A desire to quicken neighborhood errands must be one of the most common motives for city people to buy a bike. Should indeed be thought about by planners and such.

Anne-

I’d like to see injury statistics but my understanding is that a bike lane separated from traffic by a row of parked cars helps prevent a type of accident that rarely occurs: the motorist overtaking the cyclist. However, it appears to me that it would greatly worsen the much more common types of accidents at the intersection because the cyclists will be hidden from view by the SUVs.

I agree that it may feel safer to have a steel buffer between you and traffic but perceptions of safety can be deceiving. (as is brilliantly noted in the Malcom Gladwell piece on SUVs that was posted on a recent thread)

a center bike lane would prevent pedestrian conflicts AND car conflicts.

I can’t help thinking that this center bike lane concept is a total bust. May be that reflects its radical difference from all current designs in the standard planning tools, and my lack of familiarity with it. But I can’t see that design working on all but a very few streets, mostly in Manhattan (though ddartley basically admitted that himself). Cars are constantly shifting lanes on those wide one-way avenues, to get around double-parked cars, buses, slow-moving vehicles, etc. And they often need to get from one side of the road to another. Never mind the acrobatics that taxis do when they see someone hailing on the opposite side. Plus, riding in the middle of a busy high-speed avenue doesn’t seem likely to win many converts among those already intimidated by NYC biking.

Not sure I see why it’s so complicated. When you want to make a turn you just stop and wait for the light to change so that you can proceed with crosstown traffic.

Paris now has a few of these center median bus/bike/taxi lanes and while I didn’t really delve into how they function for bikes, they are far and away the best BRT lanes in the city right now.

Also, a center lane would DEFINITELY need to be physically separated (perhaps raised) from the street to keep drivers away.

Harvey, sure enough, while out riding yesterday I thought of the very same possible shortcoming you describe above. Probably at the same time you were writing your comment, if you believe in that Jungian stuff.

Yeah, I don’t know what to say about that. I wish the design was unassailable, but I must admit it could be 1)annoying and 2)possibly scary to stand in a lane between car lanes waiting for the light to turn red AND THEN turn green again.

I suppose it really is a sort of “bike highway,” not for lots of turning and neighborhood exploring, but to provide a safe place for cyclists to drive THROUGH to a distant destination, like so many cars do in our city. The reason I’m attached to the design is because that’s how I ride–mainly as a commuter. And it is, undoubtably, safer to ride *in a straight line,* and visibly. That’s what this kind of dedicated lane would provide.

I suppose the solution to the “waiting to turn” problem is a bit chaotic, or, unfortunately, better suited to the courageous: If ALL lanes have a green, and a cyclist in between moving car lanes wants to turn off, they can a)wait, as already discussed, or b)just cut across the one or two car lanes as needed, cautiously. Scenario “b” does not introduce any more chaos to the picture than what currently exists. (Of course, I was aiming higher than that, but maybe “design team streetsblog” will fix it.)

Harvey,

I’m thinking that to really make this work then you’ve got to convert some of Manhattan’s one-way avenues back into two ways and create center medians that function as bus/bike lanes running right down the middle in each direction.

I don’t think that this is Dartley’s plan, however. I’m just riffing…

Alan-I have faith in the non-physical separation because of the one and only way motorists DON’T abuse current class II lanes–they may park in them, turn in them, etc., but they generally don’t DRIVE in them.

I wouldn’t want to see a center lane elevated, because that would be dangerous to negotiate for cyclists–hitting a bump straight on is okay, but angling into one, like a cyclist would with an elevated center lane, can cause wipe-outs.

Thanks for all of this, it may come in very very useful in a Toronto campaign to push for a long bike lane beside the Bloor/Danforth subway to make a living legacy for a climate/bike activist tooker gomberg. Painting lines on the street is very cheap, but we too have major difficulties with how the lines do and often don’t work,though I won’t defend all cyclists, just biking.
thanks