Archinect - News

New York City is testing out new bike lane barriers across three boroughs this summer

2022-06-13T15:28:00-04:00

The city is experimenting with new types of bike lane barriers to separate cyclists from traffic ahead of what’s typically a busy summer biking season. It plans to install the materials in five locations in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens. It will also put up a new type of barrier in the Bronx to protect a bus lane there.

If effective, New York City’s Department of Transportation could include the new rubber and concrete barriers and curb designs as part of its plan to reinforce 20 miles of bike lanes in the city by the end of 2023. These barriers can effectively separate bike lanes from vehicular travel lanes without large-scale installation operations. The city also recently began deploying Jersey barriers, modular concrete or plastic barriers used to separate traffic, to secure bike lanes. The test for these new bike lane barriers is to see how effective they are in preventing vehicles from driving over them. The first of the barriers will be installed in Union Square this coming weekend. A protected bus lane pilot lane will also be installed in the Bronx.

This initiative aligns with Mayor Eric Adams’ plans to spend $900 million to build more bus and bicycle lanes throughout New York as part of the Streets Master Plan, passed in 2019, requiring the city to build 250 miles of protected bike lanes ...

The Brooklyn Bridge’s infrastructure improvements are kickstarting a renaissance for bicycling

2022-03-25T13:18:00-04:00

The Brooklyn Bridge finally caught up with the COVID-19-era rise in cycling last year after the city opened a dedicated bike path on the iconic span’s roadway. It was one of the signature initiatives in the final year of the Mayor Bill de Blasio administration, and advocates lauded the addition, which was also the first reconfiguration of the bridge since old trolley tracks were permanently removed in 1950.

Bicycle traffic on the bridge increased by more than a quarter from 2020 to last year. The jump is indicative of an overall city-wide trend, which has seen New Yorkers’ biking habits increase at a rate of 33%. The numbers likely correlate to the pandemic-era decrease in subway ridership caused by fears of viral contagion and an increase in violent incidents.

New York inaugurated 30 additional miles of dedicated bike paths in the past months, leading to a marked increase in traffic on the Manhattan and Queensboro Bridges (although DOT noted a minor decline in the use of the Williamsburg Bridge). The (almost) 139-year-old structure had previously only allowed for very uncomfortable biking on its crowded pedestrian walkway before construction was completed in the fall, after which the AMNY recorded a whopping 88% increase from the same months in 2020.

How Portland State's TREC hopes to improve bike lane design regulations

2016-04-19T20:48:00-04:00

Even where protected lanes are in place, when they meet up with busy intersections, those protections typically go away, and the logic behind their design can quickly fall apart...Will more widespread standards for bike lane treatment at intersections ever emerge in the U.S.? The Transportation Research and Education Center at Portland State University aims to move that conversation forward with its newest study.

Portland State University's TREC research group is working to develop a resource that will aims to help transportation agencies in any city design the safest and most useful bike lane infrastructure for both cyclists and drivers.

From California to Texas, car culture is losing its monopoly

2015-08-12T14:36:00-04:00

"You have generations of people under the age of 35 … who are choosing to live car free and car-lite." – Westside Councilman Mike Bonin

From the newly installed "protected" intersections in Austin, Texas and Davis, California to additional proposed bus lanes and bike paths in Los Angeles, car culture is becoming less of a given and more of an expensive, perhaps even less desirable, option. Cities across the U.S. are starting to rethink their approach to large scale transportation infrastructure projects (i.e., freeways) as driving per capita remains stagnant. Of course, this trend is somewhat complicated by the rise of cheap door-to-door transportation options such as Uber, which make it easier for the car-less to get around without having to own a vehicle. For its part, Los Angeles is considering approving an initiative known as Mobility Plan 2035, which would redesign major boulevards and avenues to encourage people to get out of their cars and into the mass-transit dreams of city planners.

Last week, Archinect highlighted Christopher Hawthorne's review of the additional lane on the 405 freeway, a project that bega...

LA Gets its First Parking-Protected Bike Lanes

2015-04-07T17:26:00-04:00

Yesterday, the city of Los Angeles installed its first ever parking-protected bike lanes. They’re on Reseda Boulevard in Northridge, part of the mayor’s Great Streets Initiative. As of this morning, the project is roughly one-quarter complete. The new protected lanes, also known as cycletracks, are mostly complete on the west side of Reseda Blvd from Plummer Street to Prairie Street. The full one-mile protected lanes will go from Plummer to Parthenia Street.

Boris Johnson greenlights London's "Crossrail" bicycle superhighway

2015-01-29T15:10:00-05:00

Boris Johnson today confirmed he would build Europe’s longest segregated urban cycle lane through central London after delays likely to be suffered by motorists were reduced. The Mayor approved the “Crossrail for bikes” protected route through Parliament Square and along the Victoria Embankment and Upper Thames Street after it won overwhelming public support.

New Jersey's first protected bike lane about to be removed again

2014-12-26T13:15:00-05:00

Mt. Prospect Avenue in Newark has New Jersey’s first protected bike lane, as far as we know. But unfortunately it looks like the Garden State will soon be back to zero. Andrew Besold at WalkBikeJersey is reporting Mayor Ras Baraka has ordered the removal of the bike lane, and in the meantime is allowing people to park in it.

Atlanta plans big for bikes, and Atlantans turn out big time

2014-10-17T18:13:00-04:00

The massive Beltline and an impressive grid of protected lanes that will connect the trail system to key urban destinations are poised to remake transportation in the city that anchors the country's ninth-largest metro area. [...] As the video above shows, Atlanta's embrace of active space is part of a psychic shift in a city that's shaking off its old Sprawlville USA image with a combination of bike, transit and affordable housing infrastructure.

Similar bike-friendly development is underway in the South's other notorious mega sprawl metro area, Houston: The Bayou Greenways Plan: A Game-Changer for Houston?

Big businesses and baby steps: Weekly News Round-Up for September 22 and 29, 2014

2014-10-06T18:43:00-04:00

Friday, October 3:

Eisenhower Memorial clears key hurdle on Gehry design: In a positive step for the Memorial's Approving Process Odyssey, the National Capital Planning Commission has OK'd the Commission on Fine Arts (the other federal body that must approve the design) to vote on the Memorial.
Where are the women? Measuring progress on gender in architecture: A series of infographics on the representation of women in architectural practice and education, courtesy of ACSA.

Wednesday, October 1:

Guggenheim plans New York expansion… again: Not for more art space (Gehry tried that before) but for offices.
Zaera-Polo steps down as dean of Princeton's School of Architecture: From the press release: "the school's former dean, Professor Stanley T. Allen, will serve as acting dean until a permanent successor is appointed and that Professor Allen will chair the search for the new dean."
Tiny Spanish Island to be First Energy Self-Sufficient Island: The 10,000 population island will use renewable e...

U.S. DOT to Publish Its Own Manual on Protected Bike Lanes

2014-09-23T19:20:00-04:00

Before the end of this year, the Federal Highway Administration will release its own guidance on designing protected bike lanes. The agency’s positions on bicycling infrastructure has matured in recent years. Until recently, U.S. DOT’s policy was simple adherence to outdated and stodgy manuals like AASHTO’s Green Book and FHWA’s own Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) — neither of which included protected bike lanes.

Green Lane Project brings protected bike lanes to six U.S. cities

2014-03-12T15:07:00-04:00

Cycling advocacy group People for Bikes has selected six U.S. cities to receive funding and consultation for new protected bike lanes, as part of its Green Lane Project. The annual Project collaborates with cities over two years to expedite the installation of protected bike lanes, one of the ways People for Bikes aims to establish bike-friendly, lower-stress streets. This past January, the group published a report documenting how protected bike lanes help local businesses, drawn partially from cities selected by their Green Lane program.

This year's cities are Atlanta, GA, Boston, MA, Denver, CO, Indianapolis, IN, Pittsburgh, PA and Seattle, WA. During its first two programs (2012 and 2013), the Green Lane Project was responsible for nearly half of the entire nation's increase in protected bike lanes, growing from 80 to 142. Previous cities that benefited from the program include Austin, TX, San Francisco, CA, Portland, OR, and Washington, DC -- now serving as mentors for future cit...

Protected bike lanes strengthen city economy, report finds

2014-01-22T13:07:00-05:00

According to a recent report from PeopleForBikes and Alliance for Biking & Walking, protected city bike lanes can actually encourage local business success. As trends show workers moving into U.S. cities (rather than out into suburbs), and businesses catering to a younger workforce that relies less on cars, cycling infrastructure has becomes integral to strengthening local businesses and encouraging long-term economic growth for the entire city.

A lot of what delays cycling infrastructure is the presumption that it only benefits cyclists. It can be hard to justify to citizens who don't cycle that bike lanes and bike-share programs will benefit the city at large, and not just the "cyclist" demographic. But cities have begun to take notice of the positive change that cycling infrastructure can help bring to their local businesses, in very concrete ways.

The report focuses on statistics from cities with expanding networks of protected bike lanes: Austin, TX; San Francisco, CA;...