The high on Saturday was 38 degrees. Most of the day was much cooler. I took the opportunity to bike through Bed-Stuy and East New York, across the Cross Bay Boulevard to the Rockaways. In part, it was an experiment designed to test whether I would notice the cold after a few minutes of strenuous biking. In the event, I did notice the cold, especially my on my face and legs, but not so much as to cancel out the tremendous pleasure of biking on empty trails in unexplored areas.
The trip took three hours and covered a little more than 30 miles. I based my trip of the New York City Bicycle Map. Here is a map of my route. All my comments can be had interactively by looking at the map. Long stretches were extremely well designed for bicycling. Much else was perfectly comfortable to bike along. In general, it was a few small neglected transition areas that felt the most dangerous. In fact, perhaps the most surprising thing is how little investment on the city’s part it would take to make this a seamless ride.
Here are my observations:
The bike lane through Crown Heights, along Dean Avenue and then St. Marks, is just beautiful. Established trees line the blocks of brownstones. In fact, it’s tragically beautiful, since the beauty means that the neighborhood, which is currently about 85% renters (zip code 11213 in census records), inevitably will be gentrified.
The relative perfection of Dean and St. Marks comes to an abrupt end at Eastern Parkway. It was a full mile of winding through treacherous boulevards before I was back on a reasonable bike street. Perhaps I could have chosen a better path. some sort of signage might help with that.
Through East New York, there was little traffic on the streets that the Bike Map encourages using, but there is also no bike lane. Cross traffic frequently move fast and doesn’t have a light or stop sign.
I surprisingly enough really like large parts of these outer areas; they were quiet, the pavement was smooth, trees had space to grow, and the smaller structures reminded me of Portland. But the dependency on cars in these neighborhoods is a real downside. Someday I hope the city will install what I like to call “Timed Arterial Bike Routes”
In my imagination, these are long routes, extending maybe 10 or 15 miles from the bridge that they pass over into Manhattan. All the lights would be timed so that as long as you stayed between 10 and 15 mph, you would only have to stop once every five miles. For these long stretches, safety wouldn’t be a concern. Bicyclist would still have to deal with the hectic nature of city traffic getting to and from the TBARs, but for the long stretch they were on the route, bicycling could be care free and relaxing. Imagine!
Back to the specific ride on Saturday. The bike lane along the Jamaica Bay Wildlife refuge is great. It is protected from traffic and you can go super fast. Then it ends without warning, and a few feet later is a high and abrupt curb that you have to get off your bike to go off. At the very least some signage would make this safer. Better yet – continue the bike route!
What a bicyclist is to do upon exiting the Crossbay Blvd. is not at all clear. It is not the most dangerous intersection, but confusion is always dangerous. Some striping and signage would help hugely.
The Cross Bay Blvd and Marine Parkway bridge can each loose a lane. That they are tolled is great, but they cut through the ecological gem of the region, and we can do better.
Rockaway Beach Blvd. is smooth sailing and nicely paved, but there is nowhere for bikes. It seems to be a big bus route, so why not make the right lane just for buses and bikes? This brings up a question I have been mulling – do buses and bikes ever share lanes? Is it a good idea?
The entrance to Jacob Riis Park is a big wide loop and is terribly dangerous for bikes. Some simple painting would go a long way towards making this safer.
There is no signage regarding how to get onto the Marine Parkway Bridge, or where it goes. There actually is a nice bike path, but I almost got in a car lane, which would have been suicide, because it is so unclear. Cheap signage/painting would make this a lot safer.
When you are at the top of Floyd Bennett Field, you are shunted east by the bike path. To go to Flatbush, you have to go along a pedestrian path that is poorly paved, not marked at all, and there are various dangerous intersections where cars are going fast, have no idea that they are going to have to interact with bikes/pedestrians, and the curbs are high so you have to get off your bike. It is a nightmare, and serious improvements could be made for pennies.
It is evident from taking this bike trip that the nature aspect of these parks is not very highly appreciated (only the golf course was populated) and not very well funded. If I were in charge I would try and spend some money to emphasize that nature is what these areas are about, they are not just a quick way to drive to Brooklyn from Long Island. Towards this purpose, I get rid of concrete as much as possible, have more opportunities for people to learn about the nature that they are passing through, and get rid of/slow down car traffic as much as possible.
Finally a tangent about Flatbush Ave:
Flatbush is neighborhood street that just happens to stretch the whole length of Brooklyn. That suggests to me that you don’t want to allow cars to take it for more than a couple blocks. You might want to allow buses and bikes to use it, though, and parking seems reasonable since there are so many businesses – you might have some people that need to parking to pick up stuff. But you should make all the parking metered or delivery/pickup only/or handicapped. A bus lane might be nice. Wider sidewalks could be nice. More than one lane each direction of car traffic is not necessary. Right now there are two lanes each direction and two lanes of parking. I am not great at this. At very least install a bus lane that bikes can share. But maybe buses don’t need to go that fast, in which case, you could have wider sidewalks and a protected bike lane. That would be nice, but traffic would be stalled, and there isn’t any subway running under Flatbush, I don’t think. But traffic really shouldn’t go faster than 15 mph because pedestrian traffic is so thick. Whatever we choose to do with Grand, we should do the same with Flatbush. I like the idea of making this kind of street as pleasant to walk along as possible, easy to cross the street, with spacious sidewalks, and slow traffic. Traffic necessarily will be a little hectic, but we can make it a little less stressful. It seems to me like parking takes up an unreasonable amount of space in this picture. I mean, two whole lanes doing what? If you got rid of parking, you could have the expanded sidewalks, bus/bike lane, and car lane. No good, though, because the traffic would move too fast. The way to do it is to have one bus/car lane, parking, protected bike lane, and expanded sidewalks. Traffic will be at a standstill constantly, but the only people who will drive on the street will be people who are going a few blocks, which is what we want.
