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Borough president has a plan for highway bike lanes
Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine has proposed a plan for a bike lane on the Westside Highway — or West Street or Route 9A (the road with many names) — to relieve the congestion on the existing bike path along the west side of the road, or east side of Hudson River Park — depending how you think of it.
The existing bike path is officially State Department of Transportation property — as is Route 9A, a state highway. So ultimately the decision will rest with the state. But Levine has been pushing for an expanded bike path for a couple years, and he said the state is now starting to study the idea.
The plan would dedicate a lane of traffic to bike traffic only from Chambers to 57th Street– a four-mile protected lane for bikes, e-bikes and “other forms of micromobility.”
He created two options — one for a bike lane on the westside and one on the east. The renderings are a bit confusing? I don’t see how there are five lanes on the east side of the highway. But the idea in general is very exciting. Here’s hoping.
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No.
No more money or resources for bicycles.
Bicyclists – especially Citibike and spandex – who proactively endanger pedestrians, ignore red lights, go the wrong way, curse any pedestrian who objects.
All City and State funding needs to go to essential MTA bus and subway
Bike Congestion?
Seems to me the right solution would be Congestion Pricing for bikes.
Bicyclists can walk, bus, subway
Wondering why the MBP does not care about subway and bus riders?
Subways are in crisis.
Buses are packed.
Sorry, did not mean to post in response to Lisa’s comment!
YES!!! Bicyclists, should use busses and subways, car owners should continue to use their cars. This is a brilliant well thought out comment for improving congestion in NYC!!!
Even better congestion pricing for bikes!!! EVERYONE knows that bikes cause most of the congestion in NYC. It’s a shame that logic and intelligence like this is wasted in a silly forum, probably should consider a career in politics.
Start with banning all the mopeds and e-bikes from the path. It’s already too much like riding in a lane of traffic on the W Side Hwy
They are banned. Very hard to enforce.
It’s a fact that the bike path along the West Side Hwy. is not always that crowded. Of course there are times when it can be, but it is definitely not the norm. I ride my bike on it frequently and I very rarely have an issue with anything other than mopeds, scooters and e-bikes, which are supposedly restricted. Oh, and the occasional walkers who (for whatever reason) prefer to walk on a designated bike path as opposed to a promenade specifically designed for walkers. I’m also sick of hearing how difficult it would be to enforce the no moped, scooter & e-bike restriction on the bike path. That excuse is getting real tired. I guess it’s also too difficult to enforce regulations that require moped and scooter operators to be licensed and their vehicles registered, right? It is the law, but what the hell, let’s just continue to allow them to ignore any & all traffics lights and signs. One way street? No problem. Just allow them to continue to travel in any direction they want. Sidewalks are for pedestrians? How silly of us to think that. Let’s just continue to allow them to travel at 25 MPH as they zip past everyone (including the elderly, people pushing strollers, walking children, etc.) on the sidewalk. If they’re licensed, they belong in the street with other licensed vehicles. If they’re not licensed, they don’t belong…period. Instead of introducing silly fixes to act as bandaids (such as removing a lane of traffic on a heavily trafficked highway), start by eliminating the core problems.
really? congestion in the already existing bike lane along Hudson River Park? I see the bike lanes from my living room, never congested. carving out a lane on the westside highway with traffic already a nightmare is one of the dumbest ideas even for a NYC progressive BP. obviously in the pocket of Trans Alt since He keeps pushing it. What is the endgame here?, We have unused bike lanes, congestion pricing, take the subway you say? look at the cesspool that has become. Gunshots in a subway car yesterday. I don’t recognize this once wonderful city anymore
I think ‘congestion’ is the wrong word choice, as that means very different things to cyclist vs those in automobiles. Anyone who has biked on the Westside BikeHighway on a nice afternoon knows that there is “capacity” issues and a myriad of dangerous conflicts.
The real problem is that e-Bikes and “other form of micro-mobility treat the existing bike as a traffic free highway thereby making it unsafe – cruising up to 35 mph, passing indiscriminately, not stoping for pedestrians in crosswalks, and unsafe speed changes while being on their phone. So I’m in favor of the BP plan *if* it moves e-Bikes back on to 9A where they logically belong.
The more congestion they create with these bike lanes, bike parking, etc. the more ammunition for congestion pricing. Create the problem then charge $15 when the car makes a turn off of the west side highway. Note the area covered for the suggested bike lanes on the west side highway.
This is great news! The existing lane is great but far too narrow for the existing volume of cyclists and runners/walkers. Segregating these groups will make it better for everyone.
Any plan that talks about adding bike lanes to the West Side Highway should be paired with a plan that expands Hudson River Park into the existing bike lane. The park is far more overcrowded than the bike lanes.
I’m in favor of anything to tame and reduce cars on West Street. I definitely favor this, even though I’m not a biker.
The pathway is absolutely slammed at peak hours, even if it’s not packed 24/7. It’s literally the most heavily used bike lane in the country.
Excellent idea, and long overdue.
Time to separate mopeds, electric bikes and scooters from recreational bikers that use the Hudson River Park path.
Multi-modal street design makes so much sense in a packed city of millions. The NYC congestion tax should be 10x the current proposal; driving (and parking) in a dense, transit-rich city is a privilege, not a right. Northern European cities are decades ahead of us, and are definitely not suffering economically for it.
Where does it say that they are going to separate the motorized scooters and ebikes? These types of vehicles will still infringe on the bike lanes.
E-bikes and motorized scooters aren’t currently allowed on the HRP bike lanes, but they’ve taken over that path nonetheless (in large part because there’s no safe alternative for them along that stretch), and have made it quite unsafe for pedestrians and recreational bikers alike as a result.
The point of the dedicated micro-mobility lanes on the highway is to re-direct those electric/motorized users there, in order to return the HRP bike paths back to recreational bike use only (of course, will need some enforcement, but there will no longer be any excuse).
We’ve designed our streets in the U.S. almost entirely for automobiles; we’re just so accustomed to being second-class citizens as pedestrians and bikers that we don’t realize how inefficient and nonsensical our existing approach is.
If it is any consolation, bus riders are actually 3rd class citizens
This might be the dumbest, politically motivated, idea ever! Does he provide numbers to back up his claim of overcrowding? I am pretty sure any civil engineer would be able to sort this political boondoggle out.
How about installing speedbumps so all these wanna be Lance Armstrongs, who don’t slow down or stop as they should, don’t injure kids and people trying to cross the path?
Hmm, most of the time the bike path is not that crowded. Yes, briefly at rush hours, or on a beautiful weekend day it gets congested, especially near crossings like Little Island, and yes, mopeds and high speed E-bikes need to be stopped and ticketed, but most of the time it is perfectly fine. How about having the bike lane on the west side of West street only be used on weekends, when bike/jogging traffic is heaviest, and vehicular traffic on the highway is lighter? Use the flexible Jersey barriers that can be slide/moved into place like some roads do for HOV/rush hour lanes near tunnels, to separate the lane from traffic?
Looking at rendering for east side alternative, it seems like the bike path would take place of parking lane along West Street.
I don’t drive but funny how my bike neighbors – who’d like to eliminate vehicles and profess to care about the environment – get so much e-commerce delivery….
The issue with traffic on the west side highway has nothing to do with how many lanes it has, it has to do pinch point gridlock at the tunnel entrances…..
So yes, more space for bicycles.
I might think about supporting this idea when cyclists are required to be licensed and start obeying the traffic laws, ie obeying traffic signals, staying off sidewalks, etc.
Our government is reluctant to arrest people who assault people on the street or the subway. No one is going to be arrested for violating traffic laws.
agreed. funding for this needs to include enforcement of bike laws -pedestrians (any cyclists) would be a lot safer.
What’s the point of licensing bikes? There are already laws that govern their operation, just that NYPD refuses to enforce. But if you do get caught running a light on a bike, you still get a ticket, license or not. Let’s create more bureaucracy? And it’s not like licensees stop drivers from killing hundreds of cyclists and pedestrians every year in this city. Dumb idea.
Great news, we need more bicycle infrastructure. The West side bike path is a roaring success and is actually the most used bike path in all of the US, as such we should support and expand this success. Everyone predicted doom when a Brooklyn Bridge car lane was dedicated to cyclists… guess what, it’s fine and as a result both the pedestrian path and bicycle path are safer.
I’d assume the path would need to be on the west side of the highway though as building it on the east would have it broken up with cross streets every block somewhat reducing the usefulness of the thruway.