Hasta La Ideas

As someone recently introduced to regular bicycling by Citi Bike, New York’s bicycle share program, I love bike lanes. I just wish there were more of them; their relative Manhattan scarcity, and my unwillingness to brave the laneless streets with the battle-hardened bike pros, mean I must often choose circuitous routes in order to safely remain a wussy.

I assumed NYC won’t add more bike lanes because of the added cost and the resultant auto traffic congestion (more room for bikes means less room for cars). So I was very surprised to read a NYC Department of Transportation study [PDF] released this month that found that adding bike lanes actually increased the flow of auto traffic.

How is this possible? In two words, clever design. But before we get into the details, for those of you not familiar with the style of NYC’s newest bike lanes, let’s have a look at the old system:

As you can see, placing the bike lane there leaves the cyclist in danger of getting “doored” by someone getting out of a parked car without bothering to look first. And the painted buffer between the cyclist and moving traffic offers zero protection from a car that veers out of control. So in 2007 they started shuffling things around like this:

With this improved design, the cyclist now rides adjacent to the sidewalk. The painted five-foot buffer prevents the cyclist from getting doored by a parked car, which now resides in a parking lane that provides a solid physical barrier protecting a cyclist from colliding with a moving auto. And if you look at the dimensions listed, you’ll see the buffer can now safely be reduced by two feet in width, while the bike lane got wider by the same amount.

So right off the bat this second design is smarter than the first, and the numbers bear that out: In 2001, the old-style lanes were in effect. In 2013, the new-style lanes were in existence. And there has been a “75% decrease in average risk of a serious injury to cyclists” in that time period.

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