I just received email from Transportation Alternatives
Here's how the new 8th Avenue will look:
Bleecker to 14th Street: Buffered bike lane (existing, installed in 1997)
14th to 23rd Street: The DOT will remove a travel lane and replace it with a buffered bike lane!
23rd to 39th Street: The DOT will stripe an unbuffered bike lane
39th to 42nd Street: No bike lane. The DOT plans to install new shared lane markings—a standard bike lane pavement symbol placed in a travel lane.
42nd to 57th Street: Unbuffered bike lane
57th Street to Columbus Circle: Shared lane markings
8th Avenue Bike Lane
Thu, 04/20/2006 - 10:54am
Thu, 04/20/2006 - 6:24pm
#1
The irony
I'm generally not a big fan of NYC's bike lanes because they tend to get blocked by delivery vans, pedestrians and roller bladers and such. They also tend to be very close to opening car doors, albeit on the less-used passenger side.
However, when I got the TA e-mail today about the 8th Ave bike lane, I thought, well, at least it might make it easier to navigate the stretch of 8th Ave in front of Port Authority, which is typically blocked by cabs double parked on the left side and buses on the right side, often requiring bikes to ride up one of the middle lanes on a busy avenue.
It's disappointing to learn that the stretch in most need of improvement for cyclists, from 39th to 42nd St., will be, in effect, the same as it ever was. But I guess progress happens in slow steps! Hats off to TA for fighting the good fight.
Fri, 04/21/2006 - 1:33pm
#2
not happy
yeah, i was never a big fan of regular bike lanes either, but i like the wide buffered variety. that way we could ride on the stripes and avoid most obstacles.
my usual commute home is riding up 8th ave from 34th past columbus circle onto cpw. when i saw the new pavement on 8th ave, i was praying they would paint the wide buffered bike lane like you see below 14th along hudson st. oh well. i guess i'll have to keep riding in the middle of the ave.
