A Busy City Street Makes Room for Bikes

The New York Times reported on 9/23 that New York City was going to remake seven blocks of Ninth Avenue, from 16th Street to 23rd Street, using a design in which a lane of parked cars protects cyclists from other traffic.

If you click on the image to the left, it will open in a larger version and you will be able to see more clearly the cross section of the street which appears at the bottom of the image.

Here’s a description of it. This is on a one-way street. There is a 10 foot wide bike lane next to the left curb. Working our way across the street to the right side, there is an 8 foot buffer zone, with planters and other impediments to vehicular traffic, a parking lane, three vehicle traffic lanes, another parking lane, and, finally, the right side curb.

You can see the full article by clicking here, though I believe the article will go into an archive for paid subscribers after a few weeks. If the article is no longer available, send a request to Steve (see Contact Us page on this site).

Proposed Syracuse Bicycle Grid Revealed

As you may know, one of our goals is to create ways to get across the city safely on a bicycle from wherever you are to wherever you want to go. Small neighborhood roads need not be signed, but larger roads and strategically placed routes benefit from bike lanes and marked routes. The hope is that they will encourage cyclists to use those routes more often and also make it obvious that motorists can expect to see more cyclists in those locations. Here’s a link to a Google map of the Bicycle Grid we have proposed to the City of Syracuse.

Bike Lanes Now Open on East Genesee Street!

You may have seen them (unfortunately, I don’t have a photo of them yet), but the State DOT installed bike lanes on E. Genesee St. from East Ave. (near Nottingham High School) to the Dewitt city line.  You will see one traffic lane in each direction, a center turn lane, and a bike lane on each side.  Very nice.  There is still a need for signage to indicate the bike lanes and, perhaps that the center lane is for left turns only.

Next step:  The city indicates it intends to continue the same layout from East Ave. west to Cherry St.  That will get folks who wish to continue west the ability to get over the hill and past Westcott St., a stretch which is currently completely uninviting for cyclists.