Whether you're an avid city biker or terrified to imagine braving the aggressive sea of New York drivers, you may be seeing more bicycles lining the streets in the next several years.
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Since he took office in 2002, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has implemented more than 373 miles of new bike lanes throughout the city. The Bloomberg administration hopes to reach 1,800 miles of new bike lanes by 2030 under PlaNYC, a 25-year plan that aims to improve city infrastructure. Despite the positive hubbub, some New Yorkers feel that more bike lanes will disrupt the city rather than improve its traffic flow.
"For the majority of New Yorkers, it is simply not feasible to make bicycles their primary mode of transport, and unfortunately that's the direction I believe the city's policy is heading," Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz said at his State of the Borough speech.
The Department of Transportation, however, disagrees.
"Safety is our top priority and bike lanes have demonstrated their effectiveness at improving safety for all street users," spokesman Monty Dean said. "[We] found that injuries to all street users — drivers, pedestrians and cyclists — declined more than 50 percent after the protected bike path was installed on Ninth Avenue in Manhattan in 2007."
The Pedestrian Safety Study released by DOT last year found that pedestrian crashes on streets with bike lanes were 40 percent less deadly than crashes on other streets.
While vast improvements have been made in the last decade, bikers in the city still don't always find the roads safe or bike-friendly.
"When riding a bike, you unfortunately bear witness to a lot of inhumanity," Steinhardt junior Josh Freydkis said. "I have friends who have been hit and left for dead in the middle of the road. Despite improvements, motorists still run the streets."
The Bloomberg administration's pro-bicycle plan may not be easily thwarted, especially since the campaign focuses on the environmental benefits involved in choosing two wheels over four.
"Other cities have embraced cycling as emission-free, low-cost travel mode that promotes a healthy lifestyle — and one that New Yorkers are increasingly embracing," PlaNYC states in its report. "Cycling in the city is estimated to have increased 75 percent from 2000 to 2006."
The city has made quite a few steps in the past decade, but it still lags behind more bike-friendly cities in Europe, such as Amsterdam, which is known to have more bikes than people.
"The positive change we see on the streets today came through a lot of direct action and lawsuits," said Bill Di Paola, founder of Time's Up!, an environmentalist group that has been supporting bicyclists for 23 years. "If we're talking about moving more people in a more environmentally sound and safer way, people using bicycles for transportation can do this better than people using cars."
The best part of a bike ride to campus for Freydkis?
"No [subway] fares! And I have way more fun on my commute than most people who are stuck waiting for an overcrowded train." he said. "[Bike rides] make for unanticipated adventure."
