Slashdot Mirror
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.
But it sounds like optimizing left turns is what actually improved traffic.
Except it could have been done for less than the cost of adding the bike lanes, if the city actually cared about traffic congestion.
The innovation here is left turn lanes on ONE WAY STREETS. Left turn lanes on two way streets have been around for a long time, but they are rarely used when the street you're turning off of is a one-way street (so you're not crossing oncoming traffic when making a left).
Oh boo hoo, the city, quite reasonably, combined two projects that work on roads into one process. What financial malfeasance.
"there is no law saying a bicyclist must ride in lane in NYC.. it's only recommended but up to rider's discretion."
This isn't actually true. See below. If there's a bike lane, you're required to use it, unless you're making a turn, or are reasonably trying to avoid conditions. Reasonably is the key word here. Reasonably means "what a typical person in that situation would do," the rider doesn't get to define reasonably based on his/her own standards. Clearly, if there's a car parked in the bike lane, it's reasonable to go around it. If you're still not in the bike lane two blocks later, that's going to be hard to claim.
(p) Bicycles. (1) Bicycle riders to use bicycle lanes. Whenever a usable path or lane for bicycles has been provided, bicycle riders shall use such path or lane only except under any of the following situations:
(i) When preparing for a turn at an intersection or into a private road or driveway.
(ii) When reasonably necessary to avoid conditions (including but not limited to, fixed or moving objects, motor vehicles, bicycles, pedestrians, pushcarts, animals, surface hazards) that make it unsafe to continue within such bicycle path or lane.
http://rules.cityofnewyork.us/...
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.
Roundabouts work. A recent Mythbusters proved it: http://www.wimp.com/testrounda...