To Cycle or Not to Cycle in the West Village

By Kevin Korber of Village Confidential

As part of City Hall’s efforts to make New York a cleaner, healthier city, you may have noticed the many, many bike lanes that our fair city now features. Since their installation, the bike lanes have been a source of contention and controversy. Motorists and pedestrians complain that the city’s bike lanes are inconveniently placed and ubiquitous, while cyclists have complained about bike lanes being blocked and about how drivers do not heed to cyclists on the road. Many of these issues were the subject of a meeting held by the Village Independent Democrats last week.

The meeting set out to address the community’s concerns involving bike lanes: namely, the concern among non-cyclists that the city now has a glut of bike lanes that are poorly placed and not used properly, and the concern among cyclists that the lanes are made unusable by pedestrians and drivers.

A study conducted by the Manhattan Borough President’s Office showed that major bike-lane infractions included cars speeding in bike lanes, pedestrians blocking bike lanes, and cyclists “salmoning,” or going the wrong way inside the lane.

Present at the meeting was Tony Juliano, President of the Greenwich Village-Chelsea Chamber of Commerce, who argued in favor of licensing cyclists as a way of handling bike-lane infractions. Proposals like this have been proposed in the City Council and in the New York State Assembly, but neither piece of legislation was passed. The issue is planned to be brought up again in the City Council, but Paul Steely White of the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives argued that bike licenses, which have been implemented in other cities, would be ineffective.