They're a crucial part of pedestrian and cyclist safety, and more people should practice them, says Ryan Sharp, a transportation consultant with Alta, a transportation design firm. "It means paying attention to your surroundings and having a constant awareness of the environment so you can anticipate potential hazards," he says. Because if you're a biker or a pedestrian and you get hit by a car, you're likely to be the more injured one.
Drivers keep driving through Santa Clara as a detour around Central Ave construction. We don't have any signage like other intersections along 5th St or like when construction began. We don't have any enforcement like in April. It's worse than ever. There are fewer people using the streets, instead only more drivers. Kids are afraid to ride bikes and scooters off of the sidewalks.
The Department of Transportation is committed to implementing traffic calming and protected bike lanes under the elevated tracks in Astoria, enhancing cyclist and pedestrian safety.
"Officers from the 79th Precinct were busy trying to save cyclists and bust illegal parkers on the newly unprotected stretch of Bedford Avenue, but had to stop issuing summonses because they ran out of them."
The Adams administration intends to make cyclists less safe on Bedford Avenue by beginning the process of scraping away a protected bike lane that has improved safety for all users.
The Bunhill, Barbican and Golden Lane Healthy Neighbourhood Plan aims to improve local air quality by restricting traffic access in the Beech Street tunnel, prioritizing cyclists and local traffic.
DOT has stressed that removing the protected bike lane will not eliminate cyclists; rather, it will compromise the safety of all street users. This represents a clear breach of the Vision Zero initiative's goals, putting the city at legal risk for knowingly reducing safety on crucial corridors.