Bicycle Planning in New York City

New York City government has moved cautiously and incompletely to institutionalize bicycling in its transportation planning. Nevertheless, enough pieces are in place so that judicious pressure from key agency heads and other public officials could easily jump-start a new era of bicycle planning and expansion in New York City.

The Bicycle Coordinator

From 1979 to 1981, the New York City Department of Transportation employed a bicycle coordinator, a bicycle safety coordinator and an assistant for the latter. The bicycle safety coordinator functioned mainly in a public education role, producing radio and TV spots and subway and bus ads to raise awareness of cyclists' presence and rights on NYC streets. The position was funded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, but these Section 402 funds were cut off in late 1981. Although this work is vital to safeguarding cyclists' right to the road (see Chapter 20, Public Education), it is unclear whether the City ever applied for further funding or sought alternate sources to re-establish the position. [14]

The bicycle coordinator position, currently situated in the City DoT's Bureau of Traffic, Division of Planning, has been held by two individuals (including the current coordinator). The bicycle coordinator briefly had a part-time assistant, but now works alone. [15] The bicycle coordinator has played an important role on some projects, including converting the Brooklyn Bridge stairs to ramps and completing the Central Park bike/jogger lane. However, the position's overall effectiveness has been severely constrained by lack of support from other DoT personnel, chiefly engineers who plan and implement capital projects. The bicycle coordinator has also become a lightning rod for the bicycling community's frustration with poor conditions and official neglect.

Unfortunately, the bicycle coordinator position has functioned as an isolated piece of bicycling strategy unsupported by other elements. Until recently, the City had not attempted to formalize a commitment toward bicycling; nor had it resolved to provide dedicated funding for cycling programs or projects. A promising initiative was begun in 1991 when the DoT Com-missioner's office ordered the drafting of a bicycle policy statement. The draft statement requires road and bridge construction and rehabilitation projects to explicitly accommodate cycling, and directs each DoT bureau to respond with detailed plans for carrying out bicycle-friendly improvements. [16] Not a single bureau had done so by early 1993, however, testifying to the low regard in which cycling is held by the bulk of DoT personnel, and to the difficulties facing the bicycle coordinator.

Nowhere is the DoT's ambivalence toward promoting bicycle transportation more evident than in its treatment of its own 1990 survey of commuter attitudes toward bicycling. As we discuss in Chapter 2, State of Cycling, the DoT found that high percentages of midtown Manhattan office workers would consider cycling to work if they could be guaranteed safe bike lanes, secure workplace parking and a place to change clothes and wash up. Yet the DoT's report on the survey failed to take the simple step of distinguishing survey responses as a function of commuting distance; as a result, it understated the level of interest in cycling indicated in the responses. More tellingly, DoT representatives ranging from the Commissioner to the Bicycle Coordinator have rarely, if ever, mentioned the survey findings, even in forums devoted to bicycle transportation.

DoT statistics on such vital matters as bicycling volumes, traffic accidents, and bike messenger levels also are often incomplete or of questionable accuracy. Cyclist “screen-line” counts, for example, capture only cyclists entering, rather than circulating within, the Central Business District; even the screen-line counts themselves appear to undercount cyclists crossing into the CBD by 10-15 percent. [17]

Direct contact with city officials is an aim of Bike-to-Work Week. Shown here is Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden (front row, center). Photo:Kathryn Kirk, Office of Brooklyn Borough President.

The Bicycle Advisory Committee

In 1977, the City established the Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC), an informal body representing citizens groups and public agencies concerned with cycling. The following decade-old quotation sadly rings true of NYC Bicycle Advisory Committee meetings today:

While monthly meetings were earlier held with deputy or assistant commissioners, the level of DoT participation has decreased. Minutes have been sporadic; provision of current status [of projects or inquiries] and data has been less than optimum. [18]

Although meetings now occur regularly every 6-8 weeks, the BAC remains relatively ineffectual. Attendance by relevant City agencies, such as Police, General Services and Parks, or by DoT personnel other than the bicycle coordinator, has been sporadic, impeding continuity. Follow-through is made more difficult by the lack of progress reports concerning initiatives from previous meetings. As a result, the meetings often consist primarily of unproductive venting of the cycling community's frustrations. The BAC should be formally reconstituted by mayoral order with a clear mandate to increase the level of bicycle transport in NYC, with compulsory attendance by relevant agencies and departments. Such a move would bring the New York City BAC up to the level of professionalism attained by comparable bodies in many other U.S. cities and states.

Other Levels of Government

Many of cycling's advances in New York City have been made possible through intervention of supportive city and state politicians. However, such individuals are a distinct minority, either through temperament, competing priorities, or pessimism that city administrations will follow through. Moreover, to date the Transportation Committee of the City Council has shown little inclination to oversee the DoT or face up to the city's many pressing transportation problems, let alone encourage cycling as a fundamental alternative.

A bright spot for NYC cycle planning is the new area of greenway development. The NY State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation, NYC Department of City Planning and the Borough Presidents of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan — together with citizens' organizations — have taken a leading role in mapping and exploring funding sources for an extensive system of off-road bicycle and walking routes, concentrated in the outer boroughs and on the Manhattan waterfronts (see Chapter 7: Greenways). This network could become a major recipient of bicycle and pedestrian facility funding under new federal transportation legislation (see below).

New York State government has a bicycle coordinator in its Department of Transportation, a bicycle safety liaison in the Governor's Traffic Safety Office, and cycling-oriented planners in the Office of Parks and Recreation. The state has set guidelines for development of bicycle facilities and has recognized that secure bicycle parking is a major element in any bicycle transportation strategy. [19] NY State DoT also has personnel in each of its regional landscape design offices designated as bicycle planners. However, at this writing, the New York City area (NYS DoT Region 11) bicycle planner and the cycling community have only recently made contact. Hopefully this will increase as the state carries out its new federal mandate to produce a plan for bicycle transportation, and as local cycling advocates step up lobbying for cycling projects funded by state-controlled flexible federal transportation dollars.

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