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.
— amNewYork
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.
4 Comments
yeah, no, the new bike lane sucks. instead of being safe from automotive traffic, you're directly next to cars and there's a constant possibility someone will throw something out their window or hit you.
instead of having a view and interaction with people, the bridge is now just a commuting corridor.
at least you get closer to car exhaust so your days in this moronic universe won't be as long
i know there's a lot of dipshits who are happy about this bike lane but that's because they don't know good from bad.
It's an imperfect compromise but I find it better than navigating the walkway with tourists who can't walk a straight line, Instagrammers setting up photoshoots at the bottlenecks, and One Dollar Water vendors crowding the landfall.
It's certainly an improvement, but it's like the least possible improvement. I can't imagine looking at this and being proud of the result:
the problem is the car, not the bike, and this is the best you're going to get in the current automobile paradigm. i'm with monosierra here.
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