The new bike lanes on Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn are a step in the right direction -- hundreds of bikers are using the Smith Street/ Jay Street corridor to get to the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges.
Unfortunately, however, motorized vehicles don't respect the lanes. As a matter of fact, cars just love the new double-parking lane. Just five minutes observation on Jay Street this morning provided hundreds of examples -- the new lanes are clogged with cars, buses and trucks.
The Brooklyn Eagle has done some digging into this -- and quotes Caroline Samponaro, director of bicycle advocacy for Transportation Alternatives speculating that double-parking may have even gotten worse since the new bike lanes have arrived: “Now drivers feel there’s more space to double park.”
Samponaro met with the 84th Precinct Tuesday to ask that a pilot enforcement campaign be started for the Downtown Brooklyn segment of the Jay Street bike lane. Unfortunately DOT has no traffic enforcement capacity -- it's up to the Precinct. (Now if we just get the guys from the Precinct from parking in the bike lane!)
Community Board 2 District Manager Rob Perris provided the Eagle with an interesting analysis of the treacherous Adams Street bike lane as well.
Read the full story here.
Photos by MK Metz
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Thursday, October 23, 2008
Cars Love the New Downtown Brooklyn Bike Lanes
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2 comments:
The new downtown Brooklyn bike network is great, but enforcement is the key. I think there should be dedicated bike lane enforcement group like the parking meter enforcers rather than expecting Police Officers to do it. They will more than pay for themselves.
Gotta do what most cities have been doing. Should be SIDEWALK-BIKE LANE-PARKED CARS-and DRIVING LANE....The present set up doesn't work. I ride on Bedford Avenue...NO RESPECT...almost got killed when there's a parked car on the bike lane and there are a car doing broken u-turns.....
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