The Importance of Integrated Bicycle Planning

Though different chapters may be aimed at different agencies, we stress the importance of integrated, rather than piecemeal, transportation planning. To increase cycling in New York City, agencies must work together, and alongside the bicycling community, to improve conditions.

For example, an ambitious bike lane and greenway program will spur an increase in cycling, but that growth will be constrained unless accompanied by safe bike parking facilities. New, better-designed bike lanes may reduce accidents involving cyclists, but even more accidents will be avoided if such improvements go hand-in-hand with public education and enforcement of traffic laws.

Also, within the broader realm of city planning, the agencies involved must agree on the need to restructure transportation priorities and practices. Too often, marginal improvements for cyclists and pedestrians are put in place while planning for autos and highways literally crowds out these alternatives from the streets. Even within a single agency such as the NYC DoT, one hand may be seeking to extend a bikeway while the other is restricting cyclist access to a key river-crossing. Thus, if the recommendations of this Blueprint are implemented piecemeal, without thought for their place within a wider change of transportation thinking, much of its value will be lost.

This Bicycle Blueprint, then, is more than a set of policies to increase cycling. It presents a vision of New York City that is people-oriented and refuses to accept the cynical trade-off of short-term economic values for sustained human livability. Chapter 4, Street Design, advocates a substantial transfer of street space from automobiles to bicycles, in part through creating an extensive network of on-street bicycle lanes. Not only is cycling environmental transport par excellence, but growth in cycling facilities can also be used as an active agent of motor-traffic restraint.

As we state in another Transportation Alternatives report, the goal of “traffic calming” is a “civilized environment which provides a safer, cleaner and more pleasant, convenient and attractive place to live, work and play.” [1] We believe that the vision and measures advocated here, translated into official policy, can contribute greatly to a humane street atmosphere benefitting not only cyclists but also pedestrians and the community at large.

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