New Bike Markings For Brooklyn’s Fifth Ave. This Month

shared_lane2.jpg

Word has come down that DOT is now aiming to install its new Class III Shared Lane bicycle stencils on Brooklyn’s Fifth Avenue before the end of November. The markings are an interesting innovation for New York City in that they direct motorists and cyclists to share the middle of the road as equals. Drivers aren’t supposed to blast their horns at cyclists riding in the travel lane and cyclists aren’t supposed to try to slip in and out of the door-zone between moving traffic and parked cars. The City, in other words, is telling cyclists: Go ahead and take the travel lane on this street. It is yours. What do you think?

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

Birth of a Class III Bike Route

By Aaron Naparstek |
Department of Transportation contractors put down the long-awaited Class III "Shared Lane" bicycle stencils on Brooklyn’s Fifth Avenue this weekend. As I understand them, the markings are meant to do two things: Inform cyclists that Fifth Avenue is a preferred bike route. The more people who bike on Fifth Avenue, the safer Fifth Avenue will be for biking. […]

QBB Bike Access Improvements Advance to CB 6 Full Board With 13-1 Vote

By Stephen Miller |
A DOT proposal that would extend protected bike lanes and add shared lane markings to First Avenue and 59th Street received a 13-1 supportive vote from Manhattan Community Board 6’s transportation committee last night, moving improved bike access at the Queensboro Bridge one step closer to reality after three committee meetings on the topic. The project will […]

A CRISPier Way to Build NYC’s 200+ Miles of New Bike Lanes?

By Aaron Naparstek |
See the world’s first music video about shared-lane bike markings by Streetfilms Clarence Eckerson. At times over the last two and a half years I have done quite a bit of organizing and advocacy work to help get new bicycle lanes and shared-lane markings installed on Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn, my neighborhood’s main bike route. Though […]

DOT Replaces a Block of the Fifth Avenue Bike Lane With Sharrows

By Stephen Miller |
DOT’s recent design tweaks to Eighth Street have come with an unwelcome change on Fifth Avenue. As the Fifth Avenue bike lane approaches Eighth Street, it now morphs into sharrows that overlap with a turning lane for motorists. The dedicated space for cycling is gone, and the new design is incompatible with the protected bike lane that advocates and […]

DOT: Seaman Avenue Bike Lanes Won’t Return This Year

By Brad Aaron |
The asphalt is fresh, the yellow lines and crosswalks installed, but DOT won’t be returning bike lanes to Seaman Avenue until next year, according to the office of local City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez. Seaman Avenue is the only designated north-south bike route between the Hudson River Greenway and the Bronx, and it’s the trunk […]