New York City will get 18 miles of protected bike lanes this year

As part of Mayor de Blasio’s Vision Zero plan, the city will expand its bike lane network

On Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg announced plans to add 75 miles of new bike lanes to New York City streets, with 18 fully protected bike lane miles, by the end of 2016 as part of the mayor’s Vision Zero plans to expand the protected bike network across the boroughs (h/t Gothamist).

The announcement puts the city on track to exceed its initial 15-mile expansion of protected bike lanes, which it hopes will reduce fatalities and injuries on the streets. "Our Vision Zero goal has always been to make sure that with the massive growth in its popularity, cycling remains safe," stated Trottenburg. "No cyclist death is acceptable and that’s why we’ll continue raising the bar to keep riders protected," Mayor de Blasio said in a statement of his own.

By the end of the year, the DOT will have expanded bike lanes by at least 75 miles with only 14 of those being signed/shared lanes. The city will have installed more exclusive bike lane this year alone than it ever has in its previous years. Critics of the mayor's plan, though, say that the De Blasio administration is not acting swiftly enough, nor is it doing enough to protect cyclists; Transportation Alternatives director Paul Steely White told Streetsblog that the mayor's goal of adding 10 miles of protected bike lanes each year is "paltry."

The full list of new protected lanes can be found here, but some notable ones include Amsterdam Avenue between West 72nd and West 110th streets; Queens Boulevard between 74th Street and Eliot Avenue; and Jay Street in between Sands and Fulton streets in Brooklyn.

from
http://ny.curbed.com/2016/9/14/12910302/nyc-bike-lane-expansion-vision-zero