The New York City Bike Lane Bounty
For bike commuters, couriers, and enthusiasts in New York City, the huge amount of obstructions, and danger of the city’s bike lanes have become an all-too familiar sight. To provide some context, NYC is known to have one of the most expansive bike lane networks in the United States, being home to hundreds of thousands of bike commuters and workers. Though they are regarded by some as one of the most bikeable cities, there is the huge downside of dealing with everything New York has to offer – The pedestrians, damaged roads, and most notably – vehicles. All it takes is one mistake and you could be roadkill.
Besides the obvious danger of moving vehicles, what makes commuting often difficult is the obstructions that exist in the bike lanes – the very bike lanes that are supposed to keep cyclists off the streets, away from danger. Dealing with trash bags, construction signs and the notorious potholes is one thing, but one of the biggest issues is drivers parking/stopping in bike lanes. The network that exists for bike lanes is quite expansive and good when clear, but when drivers constantly obstruct lanes, going completely unchecked, it forces cyclists to go into the streets, putting themselves in danger, and also causes congestion in busy areas for cyclists. Having to weave around the 50th car in the bike lane while not getting hit by the cars in the main road going twice your speed is an issue that’s far too common and makes commutes more dangerous and convoluted.
In the article, it is discussed how recently, a bill has been proposed by a New York City Council member that would allow people to report vehicles blocking bike lanes, and as an incentive, receive 25% of the proposed $175 ticket as well. Earlier in this course, we discussed how optimizing a physical road network was often an issue, and how we take several approaches to make things more productive, such as rerouting, tolling, and other measures that would lessen the congestion in certain paths. While this approach doesn’t directly mirror any of those strategies, providing a disincentive for vehicles to block the road would similarly make the bike lane’s network far more efficient, and more importantly create a far safer network for cyclists to traverse.
If this goes into effect, we will be likely to see less vehicles congesting the bike’s network, and also less bikes being forced to go into the main road’s network. It’s a win-win for everyone – except for the ‘bike lane scofflaws’, as the article puts it. The article further discusses the potential drawbacks of this solution and how it might not necessarily deter the behavior. It’s said that reporting systems could cause a lot of violent interactions between drivers and reporters, whilst also creating some equity issues, as tickets are more likely to harm lower income people, while being less of an issue to the wealthy.
If implemented properly, however, I believe that with proper regulation, documentation and widespread information, this can become a huge deterrent, and result in a huge improvement in commuter safety, while also making the bike and vehicle networks far more efficient for their respective commuters.