[UPDATED] Bike lanes, love em or hate em

The new 2 block bike lane on Sands Street in Brooklyn is finally open and, in full effect. I've snuck in some rides since the tar went down, buts its now officially open with all the signs, lights, and painted lines in place. The first day I rode the enclosed part of the path, there was head-phoned jogger up ahead going the same direction. In order to pass her (she was totally oblivious to the world around her) I had to cross the yellow line into the oncoming lane. I wondered why she was running in the path, with there being sidewalks right there for her to use.

I also happened to notice that when you're not logged into twitter - the home page has a search. After my tweet, I searched for "bike lane" and sure enough its a highly contentious topic. Both reasonable and stupid people alike are up in arms about bike lanes all over the US.



So yeah the new path is great, I love it, its great. Really. But... there are 2 big problems.

First, to lawfully enter and exit the Manhattan bridge path you have wait and cross for 2 lights. There is only an L crossing, and not a full square. Most cyclists will run the light in a diagonal direction as soon as opportunity strikes.


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If the fence was opened up on the SE corner, then a 1 light crossing would be possible. You can tell by looking at the curb cut on the NE corner that the plan only intended for cyclists to enter from one direction. The new path is not in the google street view, but you can spin a 360 and figure out what I'm talking about.

Lets take a closer look at the new bike specific traffic lights at Sand & Gold St. Hmm...



Once you pull up to the intersection, the light is completely obscured by the sign.



It seems that the bike lane painters and the street sign installers, don't work in the same department. They certainly aren't sharing notes. This problem doesn't seem like as much as a design oversight as the crossings at Jay St. But it certainly seems like the street sign installers need better instructions to do their job or just some common sense.

[UPDATE] The sign has been fixed! I sent an email to the DOT, including the pictures from this post. Monday morning the sign was chopped down, and no longer blocks the traffic light. There was also a DOT truck and worker filling out paperwork, as I passed.