A Bike Lane in the Sky

Pulaski Bridge. Photo: Ben West.

A two-way cycle track, actually. My son, Ben, and I were driving around Queens last Saturday, and we decided to have a look at the bike lane the City installed on the Pulaski Bridge, which he tells me is the main bicycle route between Brooklyn and Queens.

The lane went in early last year, and shortly after it opened a car was filmed driving in the bike lane. If you pave it, they will drive a car on it. This issue has been solved by putting a flex post in the middle of the cycle track (between the two bicycle lanes) at the beginning of the bridge.

We got incredibly lucky, and as we were driving across the bridge, which is a drawbridge, it decided to open to let a tug-and-barge pass through. Ben grabbed the shot above with his phone.

Building this cycle track was obviously a bit more complicated than, say, striping a bike lane on 22nd Street in Fairmount, in Philadelphia. Shows you what can happen when a city government actually gets behind the idea that its streets should be safe and convenient for all users, not just cars.

See also Parking Protected Bike Lanes in Baltimore, The Bottleneck on MLK Is Still There.