Currently, bicyclists don’t have much protection from cars on Amsterdam Avenue. That should change soon. Photo via DOT.
Amsterdam Avenue is just weeks away from getting a protected bike lane and special turn lanes, a Department of Transportation representative said at a town hall meeting hosted by City Council Member Helen Rosenthal on Monday night. Construction should start in May, the DOT rep said.
We delved into the details of the Amsterdam Avenue redesign here.
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Yaaaaaaaaaay!
=)
Woo hoo! This is great!
This is all wonderfully green and aerobic, but at some point it would be great if, at the same time, the city and Citibike did something to promote adherence to traffic laws, helmet wearing, and general bike safety.
Why do you care if someone doesn’t wear a helmet?
When you get hit by one of the taxis that insist left turns should be made across Broadway without waiting for a green light, I’d just feel better knowing all the ventilators in your hospital aren’t taken by CitiBikers with cracked melons.
Mike, a left turn can be made across Broadway without waiting for the cross street light to turn green. The median is less than 30 feet wide. Obviously, you can’t make the turn if you’ll hit somebody.
The city and Citibike do actually promote safety quite a lot.
It’s funny that I never see people say the DMV should enforce car safety, when cars and bikes break laws at pretty much the same rate, except that cars generally kill and maim people.
The city actually does do something to promote at least a minimal level of car safety, it’s called requiring that drivers pass a test to get a license to drive an automobile.
Every day, without exception, I see numerous bicyclists clearly disregarding traffic laws with little regard for pedestrian safety. Other than disclaimer type on applications, I’ve never seen Citibike promote personal or community safety. Somewhere along the line it needs to be made clear that the concept of a red light, for example, doesn’t just apply to 4-wheels and feet.
If the city is doing so much to make car traffic safe for people, why are there over 12,000 pedestrians getting struck by vehicles every year?
Why are there 40,000 hit and runs in NYC every year?
Why are less then 10% of hit and run drivers caught?
Why did only 400 of those hit and run drivers face prosecution?
Do you really feel that the city needs to dedicate more resources toward cyclists who are “not obeying the laws”?
About time.
It will be wonderful to have a bike lane on Amsterdam Avenue. I hope they have made commercial loading zones so Amst. Ave doesn’t experience the bottlenecks that Columbus Ave does when trucks stop to unload and the three travel lanes become one.
OMG!!! This is a disaster in the making. Amsterdam effectively is being reduced to 1-2 lanes of traffic. Helen Rosenthal – City Councilwoman – take note. Your positions on expanding AMNH, installing excessively large and numerous Citibike bike racks on side streets, and now reducing Amsterdam to a slow moving parking lot, have cost you my vote.
Excessively large numbers of CitiBikes? Lol! It’s about half the number of bikes per square mile than in Midtown. Which is more congested?
Someone needs to learn to count. How is it 1-2 lanes?
Also, should maybe read one of dozens of case studies around the world that have unequivocally proven that reduced lanes don’t create traffic. People simply make better choices about where and when to drive.
Ditto
Ditto
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Yay traffic!
Why is there budget money to add bike lanes, when the roads themselves are increasingly worse and need repair. You can’t travel a quarter mile without potholes. We need alto learn to maintain what we have before decreasing road space and increasing traffic, noise and pollution
Well, since SUVs tear up the road much faster than bicycles do, it should cost less to maintain the road going forward after repurposing one lane to non motorized traffic…
Eighty percent of the total cost of the 250 miles of bike lanes installed since 2006 was paid for by the federal government, through a matching grant that can only be used to build and maintain bike lanes. The cost to the city to make bicycling a real option for all New Yorkers through safe street designs has therefore been only $1.6 million, virtual drops in the bucket as compared other transportation infrastructure investments.
So true. The roadbed of Amsterdam Avenue needs to be repaired. 57th Street through the Lincoln Center area is horrendous. At the same time, 10th Avenue from 42nd Street through 57 Street is a nightmare. Roads are dug up, and when work is done, the road is never properly repaved. Will the city pay my repair bills?
This is ridiculous. These bike lanes are hardly used (and never used correctly). The bike lane on Columbus has not only turned that avenue into a parking lot most mornings, it’s also an extreme hazard when crossing the street on foot, when bikers don’t pay attention to traffic signals and blow right by–I’ve nearly been hit numerous times. I won’t even start on how much more cabs cost with the additional time it takes to navigate the delivery trucks blocking the reduced number of lanes. Can’t wait to have this problem on Amsterdam now.
HOW DARE YOU SPEAK SENSE!!!
I’m a bike rider (I own a car and I walk also) ….. I could not agree with you more!
Fantastic news! I walked home from Helen’s town hall last night past thirty bikes on 4 blocks of Amsterdam Ave. It’s great that the businesses and residents on Amsterdam will have a bike lane.
Amsterdam Avenue is already a parking lot, especially on Friday afternoons. It is also rife with fire engines and police cars and tourist buses. While I fully support bike riding in NYC, unless cars and trucks have limited access to the avenue, it’s going to be a sea of honking. While I appreciate the Columbus Avenue bike lane in theory, I rarely see bicycles using the lane, and I’ve seen delivery bicycles continue to use the car lanes. I am not looking forward to this.
Anecdotal much?
I think it’s a great idea to move forward with promoting more bike traffic, thus reducing auto congestion and the adverse effects that has on our ozone layer, however, the “island parking” has me a bit worried as it is very confusing to pedestrians crossing, thinking that they made it across without being maimed, only to have a biker clipping along at 20 – 30 mph and getting nailed. Let’s count injuries / fatalities from that and in a year either keep it, or roll it all back to as is.
So far wherever they’ve installed such bike lanes, injuries to pedestrians AND drivers have been reduced. You obviously missed the half dozen presentations given by the DOT.
Geo, How does it reduce auto traffic? There will be double the traffic when completed look at the Lincoln center bow tie disaster honking has increased 10 fold during rush hour in my area. Same amount of cars but less lanes.
Maybe pedestrians need to be educated about how to share the streets with other vehicles. They act with impunity like the laws don’t apply to them.
Last I checked, pedestrians aren’t vehicles, and ALWAYS have the right of way simply by virtue of the potential consequences of the alternative.
No Mike, pedestrians do NOT ALWAYS have the right of way. That’s why there are crossing signals for pedestrians to abide by. Once the signal is on for pedestrians to cross, then and only then do we (I’m mostly a pedestrian) have the right of way over any other vehicle. Pedestrians are habitually breaking the law and taking their lifes in their hands particularly the zombie like pedestrians with their noses burried in their phones.
Not sure I get it – pedestrians should be able to step off the curb into the bike lane with their back to oncoming traffic, and not be at fault if they get hit?
The delivery guys need to use the bike lanes, instead of riding the WRONG way down a street and getting pissed off at pedestrians that use the crosswalk correctly! Bike lanes rock!
I am in favor of this but why no Commercial only parking during the day? This plus aggressive anti-double parking enforcement would make this work. Note this is also needed on Columbus.
I live on Columbus and ride nearly every day to and from work. I see carelessness by cyclists, motorists, and pedestrians. It’s actually worse on streets with no lanes. The problem isn’t the bike lanes. It’s lack of consideration or awareness. People are in a hurry, they’re talking on the phone or texting, they’re cutting a corner to get that fare to midtown, they’re cycling through a crowded crosswalk, they’re tourists who don’t know the rules, or sometimes they’re just human beings who space out for a minute. I’d like to see more enforcement but all these things are likely to go on happening. We just have to be careful.
I agree. If all of us walking, riding and driving are aware and follow the rules it will be much safer. The rules already exist. I encourage smart policing to enforce them. I say smart because some behavior causes more severe injuries than others. Let’s focus first on that first.
Columbus at 77th and 72nd has dedicated signals for cars, pedestrians, and cyclists. There is a left turn signal for cars. When cars have that green turn signal, there is also has a red signal for pedestrians and cyclists. Yet I have seen cyclists go through that red signal (sometimes cutting off the cars that are trying to turn, putting themselves in danger) with no repercussions. But if a car doesn’t give the right of way to a pedestrian in a crosswalk, the driver gets ticketed.
The biker will get ticketed too. He will also pay a karmic penalty.
FWIW I’m seeing a lot more biker courtesy since the cops started handing out more tickets. It’s far from perfect, and there are always the obnoxious brakes-are-my-last-option spandex bikers plowing thru intersections, but I predict that will decline as well.
Having said that, biking carefully through an intersection against the light, when there is no traffic or pedestrians, is IMO the biking equivalent of jaywalking. Technically illegal, but it keeps the city going. In fact, it has a name: “Idaho Stop”, named after the state which first made it legal.
Psyched for this. When will Citibike make it up to 100th Street? Cant wait!
Until there are rules enforced and bike permits granted, pedestrians will become second class citizens on Amsterdam Ave. Cyclists ignore traffic rules. Who is more important? Cyclists or Pedestrians? It seems the Community Planning Board and Transportation Commission feel the relatively few bikers are more essential than the safety of the myriad pedestrians. Really unfortunate.
So, would you support widening the sidewalk and planting trees instead of the bike lane, or do you want to keep all 4 lanes for car traffic?
What about the suburban commuters in midtown who think the bike lanes are their personal sidewalk? This is total arrogance on their part and contempt for this city.
I really think the bike lanes are a dangerous idea that has not been well though out. If you want to ride a bike do it in Central Park. The streets of NYC are not conducive to riding a bike.
NYC is not Amsterdam (no pun intended). The bike lanes and that fiasco in Times Square – ugh!! Bring back to old NY.
On a pretty regular basis and for days at a time – concerts at the Beacon – there are large equipment trucks taking up a lane on Amsterdam.
What happens with the new structure?