20 ms·

Bike lanes have sped up car traffic in New York City

139 points by dodders 12y ago

kazinator 12y ago
The "before and after" picture at the bottom of the page shows that both "before" and "after" have bike lanes. The bike lane has grown from 5' to 6" and is separated by a buffer, but it was there before. What has sped up traffic is the creation of left turn pockets in the parking lane. But these could have been created in the "before" situation, by carving them out of the 8" curb-side parking lane. So, the claim that "bike lanes have sped up traffic" is poorly supported.
- jorgis 12y ago
  The only claim pertaining to bikes that still stands is that the changes have improved bike safety markedly.
- dleibovic 12y ago
  I agree with you that the traffic speed improvements being due to the bike lanes is poorly supported. But still, this shows that there is room for intersection/street design improvements that do not slow down cars while making it safer for bikes.
  - bjterry 12y ago
    I didn't consider this thought until reading your comment, but this is a potential example of Bastiat's "Seen and Unseen."[1] By re-engineering the roads with bikers in mind, they have created slightly faster roads for cars apparently by accident. But all of engineering is about tradeoffs, so presumably there would have been some way to make traffic even better if they didn't have to consider the fate of bicyclists at all. The authors seem to be portraying this as if it's something of a free lunch (although obviously reengineering the road has some monetary cost), but it's not. If they had spent that same money on an engineering effort directed solely at automobile traffic, they could have done better by drivers (again, presumably). Of course, if they had actually drawn a lot of people to use bikes instead of cars thus reducing traffic, then it could be argued that engineering for bicyclists advantages drivers directly, but that doesn't seem to have happened. 1: The Seen is the result of the engineering effort that they undertook. The Unseen is the result of an alternative engineering effort with different goals.
- Zarathust 12y ago
  This article is horrible. The author also states that > One is that, for the most part, driving lanes weren't actually eliminated when they bike lanes were built — they were simply narrowed. But there is nothing to support the claim that narrower lanes speed up traffic. Also this phrase is copy pasted verbatim further down the article.
  - kazinator 12y ago
    This comes from simple fluid dynamics. When a fluid is forced into a narrower pipe, it goes faster. (Venturi also tells us there is a drop in pressure, but it's not clear how this advanced aspect is applicable here.)
  - snogglethorpe 12y ago
    > But there is nothing to support the claim that narrower lanes speed up traffic My impression is that the opposite is actually true: narrower lanes tend to make drivers feel more nervous/wary, and they slow down as a result. Lane-narrowing (and "perceptual" narrowing, adding features that make it seem narrower to drivers without actually changing the amount of space) seems to be a fairly common traffic-calming technique.
- schnable 12y ago
  I have noticed a pattern in Vox articles where the content does not support the headline.
bullfight 12y ago
Protected Bike lanes are great and hopefully we start getting Protected Intersections to go with them. This site has a great video which describes the protected intersection. Having traversed them quite a bit as a cyclist, motorist, and pedestrian, they are delight to use. http://www.protectedintersection.com/ http://www.protectedintersection.com/
- arjunnarayan 12y ago
  This site is brilliant, and thank you for that link. I followed some of the citations. The video on the site makes it seem like it's an experimental idea, but to be clear, here is this dutch video showing that exact design in use - today - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlApbxLz6pA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlApbxLz6pA I can only dream of living in a place where I could bike with such safety. I regularly get honked at/shouted at in Philadelphia --- for biking in bike lanes, because, apparently, drivers in Philly believe that it is their sovereign right to drive in green painted bike lanes when they wish to turn right. Maybe I should revise my "move to Canada" life plan, and make it "move to Amsterdam".
  - bullfight 12y ago
    This design radically reorients your attention to that which is in front of you thereby significantly reducing the chance that you will miss something or "not see" that ped/cyclist, etc. In many intersections a big part of this includes clearly marking whom has the right of the way through an intersection negating the need for signals which leads to far less intersection congestion. * As a pedestrian the ease of crossing at intersection is unmatched, no more walking halfway into the intersection to see around parked cars. * As a cyclist it fundamentally transforms the experience. Every ride can be taken at ease and in comfort. No more fighting for your life. * As a motorist you worry much less about hitting a cyclist or pedestrian because they are always in front of you where you can see them. NO more straining to check every blind spot 3 times before a turn.
dang 12y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8295712 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8295712 is related.
misiti3780 12y ago
They need to put up the concrete barriers on every lane. Biking on an ave A + ave B is still not safe.
- jonathanjaeger 12y ago
  I live around Ave A and in a couple block radius I've seen a woman almost get run over (her fault for running a light) and another get side-swiped by a taxi's door (looked like the taxi's fault). There's less traffic around Ave B and further east but also less room.
- SippinLean 12y ago
  An unfortunate side-effect of the protected-lane type bike lanes is that pedestrians feel much safer there too. They are right next to the sidewalks, and as sidewalks become overcrowded and overflow (very common in NYC) the bike lane turns into a sidewalk extension. The result is a very dangerous mix of walkers, joggers, luggage carriers, hotdog cart pushers, strollers, and everything else crowding the bike lane, and creating a very dangerous situation.
  - mjmahone17 12y ago
    Still, much less dangerous than pedestrians overflowing onto car lanes. I've hit a pedestrian who stepped in front of me (I was 2 feet behind him when he stepped out), but I'm not going to kill someone when it happens. We might get hurt, there could even be blood, but unless the person is very fragile, there's next to no chance of a fatality. Also, as bicyclists fill the bike lanes, pedestrians (at least, non-tourists. Avoid Times Square!) learn not to blindly step into the bike lane. It's a learning process, but I have noticed even throughout the last year, with CitiBikes adding to the bike traffic, that walkers seem a bit more wary of jumping through the bike lane.
dominotw 12y ago
Having 2 of my coworkers killed this year on their bike( both by drunk drivers), I wont venture out on a bike until all my path is a completely protected from cars.
- dleibovic 12y ago
  Wow, that's terrible. I am so sorry to hear that. Where do you live?
  - dominotw 12y ago
    Chicago.
    - zenciadam 12y ago
      chiraq
- fumar 12y ago
  Sorry to hear! As a fellow Chicago cyclist, I recommend using bike lanes as much as possible. I will go out of my way to stay on designated bike lanes. Also, the Lake path is useful during the work week. But, throughout the years, I have noticed drunk driving does rise on the weekend nights. I do my best to stay off the streets then.
  - agumonkey 12y ago
    On bike lanes security weighs on the bikers, since pedestrian will cross or even walk on them, you're always worried about some hidden kid running wild.
- jrockway 12y ago
  I almost got hit by a drunk driver in Chicago too. Incidentally, this happened right in front of a cop and I don't think that guy is driving anymore. There seem to be a lot more drunk drivers in Chicago than in New York. Weird.
davidp 12y ago
I'm a fan of biking to work, but my inner skeptic is wondering about correlation vs. causation. You'd also have to compare the total automobile traffic levels to get a clear picture. It's possible that drivers are avoiding the streets because they assume they're worse with the bike lanes in place. Edit: Oops, somehow I missed this part: "You might imagine that these bike lanes decreased congestion by cutting down on the number of cars on the road. But if that played a role, it was very slight: on Columbus Ave., the DOT counted cars, and saw only a very slight drop in overall volume during morning rush hour, when travel times declined by 35 percent. Instead, it seems that a pair of design decisions are responsible."
bane 12y ago
I'm one of those drivers who hates sharing roadways with bikers. It's not that I have to share, but between slowing traffic down, pure safety concerns for the biker (who I as the automobile driver am responsible for in the case of an accident) and the generally shitty entitled attitude lots of bike riders seem to have (probably earned from dealing with irritated drivers like me) I get my hackles raised every time I see one on the roads. Bikes aren't automobiles no matter how much we debate about it. They shouldn't be sharing the road with cars. But you know what? I'm absolutely in favor of this kind of road engineering. Regardless of making traffic faster or not, it's just smart design. Between roads, sidewalks and bike lanes, this provides a designated travel area for everybody regardless of the mode they choose to travel with. Bikes shouldn't be sharing the road with cars, they should have their own designated travel areas. It eliminates all three of my issues in one swoop and provides equitable space for sharing the travel conduits in a city. In fact, it would probably get me out on a bike more often.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  "I get my hackles raised every time I see one on the roads. Bikes aren't automobiles no matter how much we debate about it. They shouldn't be sharing the road with cars." Horses must really piss you off then.
  - HCIdivision17 12y ago
    I don't know if you're joking, but horses aren't much fun to share a road with either. They're slower than the traffic and literally defecate anywhere. It's positively impressive how much urine can be left behind at a stop light.
    - lotsofmangos 12y ago
      Road users come in many types. At one point cities were full of horse shit and now they are full of smog from vehicle fumes. No matter your preferred choice of ride, other people's choices may interfere with your day, but it is your choice if you let that get you angry. Personally, I think people who become dangerously enraged from having to deal with other forms of transport, should probably not be operating a motorised vehicle on the public roads in the first place.
danso 12y ago
Someone already commented on this but it must be re-emphasized in blunter terms: the OP's title is sensationalized bullshit, period. What has caused the improvement in speed is the building of dedicated left lanes. The fact that the city also added bike lanes at the same time does not mean that the bike lanes caused the speeding-up of car traffic (correlation != causation, and all that)... Read from the source article that the OP references (and then glosses over): http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2014/09/when-adding-bike-lanes-actually-reduces-traffic-delays/379623/ http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2014/09/when-adding-bike-la... > So what happened here to overcome the traditional idea that bike lanes lead to car delay? No doubt many factors were involved, but a DOT spokesperson tells CityLab that the steady traffic flow was largely the result of adding left-turn pockets. In the old street configurations, cars turned left from a general traffic lane; in the new one, they merged into a left-turn slot beside the protected bike lane (below, an example from 8th and 23rd). This design has two key advantages: first, traffic doesn't have to slow down until the left turn is complete, and second, drivers have an easier time seeing bike riders coming up beside them.
yeukhon 12y ago
Try to drive in Chinatown. It is a nightmare with the bike lanes, let alone the traffic from along Delancey. It is nice to see the city encourage biking (well, at least for the Bloomberg administration), but the extra bike lane is hurting the safety of drivers in Chinatown, which, brings safety concern to bikers too.
pg_is_a_butt 12y ago
i realized the same thing today as i noticed a brand road in town that was just widened to add bike lanes... traffic was certainly going faster, because around the turns, drivers would drift into the bike lanes to widen turn, allowing them to drive faster around the turn. i'm sure everyone was looking for bikers, but having people routinely wander into a lane that a bike rider might feel extra confident in, and not as likely to watch out for traffic behind them.
jbza 12y ago
I lived in Shanghai for a brief period a few years ago, and there were protected lanes everywhere. It was utilized by both bikers as well as scooters. When it comes to managing loads of people, I'd imagine the Chinese have quite a bit of insight.
- wisty 12y ago
  Compulsory Chinese traffic cartoon - http://soimgoingtochina.blogspot.com.au/2007/06/beijing-traffic-lesson-left-turn.html http://soimgoingtochina.blogspot.com.au/2007/06/beijing-traf...
apendleton 12y ago
The results here are impressive, but the particular example they show in the last picture seems pretty dangerous, unless I'm misunderstanding. It seems like it places left-turning car traffic to the right of cyclist through-traffic, creating an opportunity for "left-hooks." Many jurisdictions use mixing zones instead: http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/dc_mixing_zone.jpg http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/dc_mix... (Unless there's a separate signal phase for the cyclist through-traffic, which is possible, but not that common in the US.)
- melanarchy 12y ago
  Separate signals for bikers in about 80% of these intersections, the rest have signage telling drivers to yield to cyclists before turning.
richard_cubano 12y ago
Who drives in New York?
- TheCoelacanth 12y ago
  Literally millions of people.
  - nknighthb 12y ago
    That's an interesting statistic. Where did you find it? I ask because the available statistics I've seen on NYC car ownership and daily usage would make me wonder if there are even 1 million cars operated on NYC streets per day.
    - bane 12y ago
      http://www.nycedc.com/blog-entry/new-yorkers-and-cars http://www.nycedc.com/blog-entry/new-yorkers-and-cars
      - nknighthb 12y ago
        Those are the statistics I'm aware of, yes. Not listed is the supposed statistic I'm seeking.
        bane 12y ago
        The statistics are murky. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_in_New_York_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_in_New_York_Cit... less than 30% use cars daily, but even then that's something over 2 million cars from city residents alone. I would't drive if I lived in Manhattan or along the subway in another borough, but there's some places it makes sense.
    - TheCoelacanth 12y ago
      I didn't say that there were millions of cars each day. I said that there were millions of people who drive in NYC. 43.5% of households in NYC own a car[1]. That's approximately 1.3 million households[2]. When you take into account people driving in from the surrounding areas and households with multiple drivers, there are almost certainly at least 2 million people who sometimes drive in NYC. [1] http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/01/21/vital-signs-more-households-dont-own-a-car/ http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/01/21/vital-signs-more-h... [2] http://newyork.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm http://newyork.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm

139 points by dodders 12y ago

The "before and after" picture at the bottom of the page shows that both "before" and "after" have bike lanes. The bike lane has grown from 5' to 6" and is separated by a buffer, but it was there before. What has sped up traffic is the creation of left turn pockets in the parking lane. But these could have been created in the "before" situation, by carving them out of the 8" curb-side parking lane. So, the claim that "bike lanes have sped up traffic" is poorly supported.

jorgis 12y ago
The only claim pertaining to bikes that still stands is that the changes have improved bike safety markedly.
dleibovic 12y ago
I agree with you that the traffic speed improvements being due to the bike lanes is poorly supported. But still, this shows that there is room for intersection/street design improvements that do not slow down cars while making it safer for bikes.
- bjterry 12y ago
  I didn't consider this thought until reading your comment, but this is a potential example of Bastiat's "Seen and Unseen."[1] By re-engineering the roads with bikers in mind, they have created slightly faster roads for cars apparently by accident. But all of engineering is about tradeoffs, so presumably there would have been some way to make traffic even better if they didn't have to consider the fate of bicyclists at all. The authors seem to be portraying this as if it's something of a free lunch (although obviously reengineering the road has some monetary cost), but it's not. If they had spent that same money on an engineering effort directed solely at automobile traffic, they could have done better by drivers (again, presumably). Of course, if they had actually drawn a lot of people to use bikes instead of cars thus reducing traffic, then it could be argued that engineering for bicyclists advantages drivers directly, but that doesn't seem to have happened. 1: The Seen is the result of the engineering effort that they undertook. The Unseen is the result of an alternative engineering effort with different goals.
Zarathust 12y ago
This article is horrible. The author also states that > One is that, for the most part, driving lanes weren't actually eliminated when they bike lanes were built — they were simply narrowed. But there is nothing to support the claim that narrower lanes speed up traffic. Also this phrase is copy pasted verbatim further down the article.
- kazinator 12y ago
  This comes from simple fluid dynamics. When a fluid is forced into a narrower pipe, it goes faster. (Venturi also tells us there is a drop in pressure, but it's not clear how this advanced aspect is applicable here.)
- snogglethorpe 12y ago
  > But there is nothing to support the claim that narrower lanes speed up traffic My impression is that the opposite is actually true: narrower lanes tend to make drivers feel more nervous/wary, and they slow down as a result. Lane-narrowing (and "perceptual" narrowing, adding features that make it seem narrower to drivers without actually changing the amount of space) seems to be a fairly common traffic-calming technique.
schnable 12y ago
I have noticed a pattern in Vox articles where the content does not support the headline.

bullfight 12y ago

Protected Bike lanes are great and hopefully we start getting Protected Intersections to go with them. This site has a great video which describes the protected intersection. Having traversed them quite a bit as a cyclist, motorist, and pedestrian, they are delight to use. http://www.protectedintersection.com/ http://www.protectedintersection.com/

arjunnarayan 12y ago
This site is brilliant, and thank you for that link. I followed some of the citations. The video on the site makes it seem like it's an experimental idea, but to be clear, here is this dutch video showing that exact design in use - today - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlApbxLz6pA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlApbxLz6pA I can only dream of living in a place where I could bike with such safety. I regularly get honked at/shouted at in Philadelphia --- for biking in bike lanes, because, apparently, drivers in Philly believe that it is their sovereign right to drive in green painted bike lanes when they wish to turn right. Maybe I should revise my "move to Canada" life plan, and make it "move to Amsterdam".
- bullfight 12y ago
  This design radically reorients your attention to that which is in front of you thereby significantly reducing the chance that you will miss something or "not see" that ped/cyclist, etc. In many intersections a big part of this includes clearly marking whom has the right of the way through an intersection negating the need for signals which leads to far less intersection congestion. * As a pedestrian the ease of crossing at intersection is unmatched, no more walking halfway into the intersection to see around parked cars. * As a cyclist it fundamentally transforms the experience. Every ride can be taken at ease and in comfort. No more fighting for your life. * As a motorist you worry much less about hitting a cyclist or pedestrian because they are always in front of you where you can see them. NO more straining to check every blind spot 3 times before a turn.

dang 12y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8295712 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8295712 is related.

misiti3780 12y ago

They need to put up the concrete barriers on every lane. Biking on an ave A + ave B is still not safe.

jonathanjaeger 12y ago
I live around Ave A and in a couple block radius I've seen a woman almost get run over (her fault for running a light) and another get side-swiped by a taxi's door (looked like the taxi's fault). There's less traffic around Ave B and further east but also less room.
SippinLean 12y ago
An unfortunate side-effect of the protected-lane type bike lanes is that pedestrians feel much safer there too. They are right next to the sidewalks, and as sidewalks become overcrowded and overflow (very common in NYC) the bike lane turns into a sidewalk extension. The result is a very dangerous mix of walkers, joggers, luggage carriers, hotdog cart pushers, strollers, and everything else crowding the bike lane, and creating a very dangerous situation.
- mjmahone17 12y ago
  Still, much less dangerous than pedestrians overflowing onto car lanes. I've hit a pedestrian who stepped in front of me (I was 2 feet behind him when he stepped out), but I'm not going to kill someone when it happens. We might get hurt, there could even be blood, but unless the person is very fragile, there's next to no chance of a fatality. Also, as bicyclists fill the bike lanes, pedestrians (at least, non-tourists. Avoid Times Square!) learn not to blindly step into the bike lane. It's a learning process, but I have noticed even throughout the last year, with CitiBikes adding to the bike traffic, that walkers seem a bit more wary of jumping through the bike lane.

dominotw 12y ago

Having 2 of my coworkers killed this year on their bike( both by drunk drivers), I wont venture out on a bike until all my path is a completely protected from cars.

dleibovic 12y ago
Wow, that's terrible. I am so sorry to hear that. Where do you live?
- dominotw 12y ago
  Chicago.
  - zenciadam 12y ago
    chiraq
fumar 12y ago
Sorry to hear! As a fellow Chicago cyclist, I recommend using bike lanes as much as possible. I will go out of my way to stay on designated bike lanes. Also, the Lake path is useful during the work week. But, throughout the years, I have noticed drunk driving does rise on the weekend nights. I do my best to stay off the streets then.
- agumonkey 12y ago
  On bike lanes security weighs on the bikers, since pedestrian will cross or even walk on them, you're always worried about some hidden kid running wild.
jrockway 12y ago
I almost got hit by a drunk driver in Chicago too. Incidentally, this happened right in front of a cop and I don't think that guy is driving anymore. There seem to be a lot more drunk drivers in Chicago than in New York. Weird.

davidp 12y ago

I'm a fan of biking to work, but my inner skeptic is wondering about correlation vs. causation. You'd also have to compare the total automobile traffic levels to get a clear picture. It's possible that drivers are avoiding the streets because they assume they're worse with the bike lanes in place. Edit: Oops, somehow I missed this part: "You might imagine that these bike lanes decreased congestion by cutting down on the number of cars on the road. But if that played a role, it was very slight: on Columbus Ave., the DOT counted cars, and saw only a very slight drop in overall volume during morning rush hour, when travel times declined by 35 percent. Instead, it seems that a pair of design decisions are responsible."

bane 12y ago

I'm one of those drivers who hates sharing roadways with bikers. It's not that I have to share, but between slowing traffic down, pure safety concerns for the biker (who I as the automobile driver am responsible for in the case of an accident) and the generally shitty entitled attitude lots of bike riders seem to have (probably earned from dealing with irritated drivers like me) I get my hackles raised every time I see one on the roads. Bikes aren't automobiles no matter how much we debate about it. They shouldn't be sharing the road with cars. But you know what? I'm absolutely in favor of this kind of road engineering. Regardless of making traffic faster or not, it's just smart design. Between roads, sidewalks and bike lanes, this provides a designated travel area for everybody regardless of the mode they choose to travel with. Bikes shouldn't be sharing the road with cars, they should have their own designated travel areas. It eliminates all three of my issues in one swoop and provides equitable space for sharing the travel conduits in a city. In fact, it would probably get me out on a bike more often.

lotsofmangos 12y ago
"I get my hackles raised every time I see one on the roads. Bikes aren't automobiles no matter how much we debate about it. They shouldn't be sharing the road with cars." Horses must really piss you off then.
- HCIdivision17 12y ago
  I don't know if you're joking, but horses aren't much fun to share a road with either. They're slower than the traffic and literally defecate anywhere. It's positively impressive how much urine can be left behind at a stop light.
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    Road users come in many types. At one point cities were full of horse shit and now they are full of smog from vehicle fumes. No matter your preferred choice of ride, other people's choices may interfere with your day, but it is your choice if you let that get you angry. Personally, I think people who become dangerously enraged from having to deal with other forms of transport, should probably not be operating a motorised vehicle on the public roads in the first place.

danso 12y ago

Someone already commented on this but it must be re-emphasized in blunter terms: the OP's title is sensationalized bullshit, period. What has caused the improvement in speed is the building of dedicated left lanes. The fact that the city also added bike lanes at the same time does not mean that the bike lanes caused the speeding-up of car traffic (correlation != causation, and all that)... Read from the source article that the OP references (and then glosses over): http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2014/09/when-adding-bike-lanes-actually-reduces-traffic-delays/379623/ http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2014/09/when-adding-bike-la... > So what happened here to overcome the traditional idea that bike lanes lead to car delay? No doubt many factors were involved, but a DOT spokesperson tells CityLab that the steady traffic flow was largely the result of adding left-turn pockets. In the old street configurations, cars turned left from a general traffic lane; in the new one, they merged into a left-turn slot beside the protected bike lane (below, an example from 8th and 23rd). This design has two key advantages: first, traffic doesn't have to slow down until the left turn is complete, and second, drivers have an easier time seeing bike riders coming up beside them.

yeukhon 12y ago

Try to drive in Chinatown. It is a nightmare with the bike lanes, let alone the traffic from along Delancey. It is nice to see the city encourage biking (well, at least for the Bloomberg administration), but the extra bike lane is hurting the safety of drivers in Chinatown, which, brings safety concern to bikers too.

pg_is_a_butt 12y ago

i realized the same thing today as i noticed a brand road in town that was just widened to add bike lanes... traffic was certainly going faster, because around the turns, drivers would drift into the bike lanes to widen turn, allowing them to drive faster around the turn. i'm sure everyone was looking for bikers, but having people routinely wander into a lane that a bike rider might feel extra confident in, and not as likely to watch out for traffic behind them.

jbza 12y ago

I lived in Shanghai for a brief period a few years ago, and there were protected lanes everywhere. It was utilized by both bikers as well as scooters. When it comes to managing loads of people, I'd imagine the Chinese have quite a bit of insight.

wisty 12y ago
Compulsory Chinese traffic cartoon - http://soimgoingtochina.blogspot.com.au/2007/06/beijing-traffic-lesson-left-turn.html http://soimgoingtochina.blogspot.com.au/2007/06/beijing-traf...

apendleton 12y ago

The results here are impressive, but the particular example they show in the last picture seems pretty dangerous, unless I'm misunderstanding. It seems like it places left-turning car traffic to the right of cyclist through-traffic, creating an opportunity for "left-hooks." Many jurisdictions use mixing zones instead: http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/dc_mixing_zone.jpg http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/dc_mix... (Unless there's a separate signal phase for the cyclist through-traffic, which is possible, but not that common in the US.)

melanarchy 12y ago
Separate signals for bikers in about 80% of these intersections, the rest have signage telling drivers to yield to cyclists before turning.

richard_cubano 12y ago

Who drives in New York?

TheCoelacanth 12y ago
Literally millions of people.
- nknighthb 12y ago
  That's an interesting statistic. Where did you find it? I ask because the available statistics I've seen on NYC car ownership and daily usage would make me wonder if there are even 1 million cars operated on NYC streets per day.
  - bane 12y ago
    http://www.nycedc.com/blog-entry/new-yorkers-and-cars http://www.nycedc.com/blog-entry/new-yorkers-and-cars
    - nknighthb 12y ago
      Those are the statistics I'm aware of, yes. Not listed is the supposed statistic I'm seeking.
      - bane 12y ago
        The statistics are murky. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_in_New_York_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_in_New_York_Cit... less than 30% use cars daily, but even then that's something over 2 million cars from city residents alone. I would't drive if I lived in Manhattan or along the subway in another borough, but there's some places it makes sense.
  - TheCoelacanth 12y ago
    I didn't say that there were millions of cars each day. I said that there were millions of people who drive in NYC. 43.5% of households in NYC own a car[1]. That's approximately 1.3 million households[2]. When you take into account people driving in from the surrounding areas and households with multiple drivers, there are almost certainly at least 2 million people who sometimes drive in NYC. [1] http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/01/21/vital-signs-more-households-dont-own-a-car/ http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/01/21/vital-signs-more-h... [2] http://newyork.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm http://newyork.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm