Surprising Result of NYC Bike Lanes: Faster Traffic for Cars

A report at vox.com says that the implementation of bike lanes in traffic-heavy New York City has one possibly non-intuitive result: car traffic was sped up as a result. The bike lanes have caused the lanes for cars to be narrowed, but as a result of the street redesign to accomodate bikes, one big change has especially helped to keep cars moving forward more steadily: Although narrower streets can slow traffic, that doesn't seem to have happened here — perhaps because traffic in this area was crawling at around 11 miles per hour to begin with. Instead, the narrower lanes were capable of handling just as much traffic, and one major improvement to intersection design helped them handle more, while also letting bikes travel more safely. This improvement was something called a pocket lane for left-hand turns: a devoted turning lane at most intersections that takes the place of the parking lane, which gets cars out of the way of moving traffic when they're making a left.

Comments

Bikes lanes are nice

[PhrostyMcByte]

But it sounds like optimizing left turns is what actually improved traffic.

Re:Bikes lanes are nice

[aardvarkjoe]

Exactly. It looks like the change that actually helped was that, near to intersections, they replaced a lane used for parking with a left turn lane. I don't know why anyone would be surprised that adding a traffic lane would help improve traffic flow.

The only thing that the bike lanes apparently have to do with it is that adding bike lanes was the reason why they decided to change the lane layout.

Re:Bikes lanes are nice

[Anonymous Coward]

The addition of the left turn lane was possible only because the lane width had been reduced due to the bike lane. The thing to take home from this is that current road layouts are not optimal, and rethinking them offers improvement opportunities. That the improvements can be counter-intuitive should encourage more research into alternative layouts: If you reject change too easily, you won't find a great solution. Who would have agreed to narrower lanes if it had not been necessary in order to have a bike lane?

Re:Bikes lanes are nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are so many people delusional about cycling speeds? Nobody does 30mph on a bicycle in a city, most certainly not weaving between anything. That would be suicidal and require fantastically exceptional fitness, not just "being in shape". Most people never do more than 25mph, don't do more than 20mph on a regular basis and do less than 15mph on average - and they're still faster than a car in a crowded city.

Re:Bikes lanes are nice

[wisnoskij]

But getting rid of those bikers, which honestly do not belong on the road, could only of helped.

Re:Bikes lanes are nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Bicycles honestly do belong on the road. Where else are you going to put them, on the sidewalk? There are pedestrians up there.

Re:Bikes lanes are nice

[hawguy]

But getting rid of those bikers, which honestly do not belong on the road, could only of helped.

They didn't get the cyclists off the roads (what do you think they did? Build elevated cycling pathways above the road?), they accommodated cyclists on the shared streets.

The cyclists are still there, the cars are still there, but everyone has a little more room, is safer, and traffic moves more smoothly, sounds like a win all around.

Re:Bikes lanes are nice

[Waffle Iron]

You are not kept away from cars on a sidewalk.

Since drivers rarely look for traffic on sidewalks as they go in and out of driveways and side streets, you run a high risk of getting run over at every curb cut. At least when you're on the road, drivers usually see you when they bother to glance up from their cellphones.

Re:Bikes lanes are nice

[kekx]

I have to disagree vehemently. It vastly depends on the speed that you are traveling with on your bike. As soon as you aproach the upper 20s (km/h, European here) it is way too dangerous to be traveling on the side walk. Here in Germany we have dedicated bike lanes which unfortunately mostly run on the side walk, meaning that pedestrians often do not look up to check if a bike is coming. More dangerously though are the cars taking right turns, because even if they bother to look you will be right in their blind spot. Add to this cars coming out of driveways or sidestreets, only bothering to stop and look once they reach the actual street and you get quite a dangerous mix. Whenever it is allowed thus, I always ride on the street and counting the number of close calls or accidents I had it is a lot safer. Basically the only danger when riding on the street are butthurt drivers who make it a point to overtake you with a 10cm gap even if the opposite lane has no traffic, because you are supposedly occupying 'their' street.

Re:So it's not the bike lanes.

[i kan reed]

Oh boo hoo, the city, quite reasonably, combined two projects that work on roads into one process. What financial malfeasance.

Re:P.S.A. in you live in NYC

[jratcliffe]

Hey, it's a defense, don't get me wrong, but your categorical statement that there isn't a law requiring you to ride in the bike line was just wrong, and bad advice for other riders. You can get ticketed for riding outside the bike line, and then it's incumbent on you to make the argument that you had reasonable grounds to be outside the lane. In your case, the judge was very friendly - not all are.