After reading the NY Times article about Portland’s daring and groundbreaking construction of multiple “bike boxes”, I was surprised to see one right in my own neighborhood of Greenpoint.
The box is part of the segment of lane painted last fall connecting West St. to McGuiness, allowing for a more seamless route to the Pulaski Bridge. These lanes take up a provocative amount of very narrow streets, and as you might expect, cars don’t respect them too much. (See picture)
The box allows bikes to wait in front of cars at the light. This means that cars turning left (a large number of them) are less likely to cut off bikes going straight. Unfortunately, the box asks cars to stop farther from the intersection than they are used to, and no doubt because they aren’t used to it, they don’t show much respect for it. (See pictures.)
Update: I guess drivers in Portland don’t know what to make of these either. Portland is starting an ad campaign to educate drivers and prevent “encroachment.”
