43rd Avenue. near 48th Street in 2019 (File Photo: Nathaly Pesantez)
March 24, 2020 By Christian Murray
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Friday that the City has adjusted the traffic light sequences on 43rd Avenue to cycling speed as part of the Vision Zero Program.
He made the announcement while outlining a number of transportation measures the city is taking as it battles the spread of coronavirus. These included installing temporary protected bicycle lanes along a number of avenues and streets in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
The Mayor announced in October that he planned to adjust the timing of the traffic lights on 43rd Avenue as part of the city’s “Green Wave.” The traffic lights have now been set on 43rd Avenue—between 35th to 51st Streets– to accommodate cyclists traveling at about 15 miles per hour.
Typically, lights turn green to accommodate a car driving at the legal speed limit of 20 miles per hour on the thoroughfare.
Green Wave Signaling was introduced as a pilot program along Hoyt and Bond Streets in Brooklyn at the beginning of 2019. The mayor’s office says that the change increased bike traffic on both streets and made journeys quicker, safer and less stressful for cyclists—since it reduced stoppages.
The pilot program also saw vehicle speeds drop slightly, according to the mayor’s office.
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7 Comments
I take this path 5 x a week. The timing has definitely made the riding smoother (less stopping if you get in the groove with the lights), but as usual the safety problems persist (speeding bikes, cars parked over the path, pedestrians not looking both ways before crossing). 15 miles per hour is rather fast (I believe), so I travel much slower. As for stop lights, I stop, look both ways and then continue, I’m not a 2000 lbs vehicle with air bags.
This whole coronavirus thing really drives home (pun intended) how silly those people who would believe a facebook post or page over professional traffic engineers really are. Particularly those who would spend several thousand bucks on a disinformation video to try to prolong a hysteria campaign they tried to create, LOL.
So DOT, which gets all of its money from DRIVERS, does something for cyclists who don’t pay a dam dime to NYC or NYS??? I drive all around Queens and the roads are like obstacle courses – sunken manhole covers, potholes, lousy paving jobs, and on and on. Cyclists go through stop signs, red lights, go in and out of traffic against lights without giving a dam about pedestrians or drivers and they don’t get ticketed. Banish these people to some deserted island where they could have all of the room to be reckless that they want.
Cyclists pay for the roads you drive on. The reasons there are potholes are because 2 ton cars do a LOT more damage to the road than a 20lb bike.
So it takes a lot of money, cyclists pay a lot more for roads they never use than motorists do.
Wow, you’re completely wrong again!
I’m gonna spend $4,000 to make a movie about this!
Why, cyclists rarely wait at red light. Red means slow down and then keep pedaling if no cars.
I feel bad for those who obey the lights, but they should be the biggest advocates of stronger enforcement.
Can someone go out on a bike and try out the new timing and find out if it is slow enough to watch for unexpected pedestrians? Vision Zero is about getting rid of cars and accidents and make the streets safer for bikes and people. Can we get some anecdotal feedback? With the streets so empty now, isn’t this a better time for roadwork and bike lane expansion rather than this weird attempt to allow bikes to go faster?