In the ’80s New York mayor Ed Koch created protective bike lanes in Manhattan along 6th and 7th Avenues much to the chagrin of a very loud and influential opposition. Within weeks, the bike lanes were torn up.
Now, New York has a fairly impressive network of 285 miles of bikes lanes, all a part of a comprehensive 21st century transportation initiative.
How did New York and similar cities beat what New York magazine dubs ‘bikelash’? Here are three key points:
- Mobilize grassroot support for bike lanes
- Pressure from business leaders who recognize that bike lanes are an asset to their companies
- Frame the conversation around what is good for the city, not just what is good for cyclists
The bottom line in the bike-lane debate is that bike lanes make city streets safer, and are good for business.
Urban Planet is a roundup of blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. For more stories from around the planet, check out Spacing on Facebook and Twitter.
2 comments
The key is to make bike lanes, Standard Operating Procedure. For example, if every road that had more then say 120 vehicles/hr must have bicycle lanes installed when newly built, resurfaced or rebuilt, within 30 years you would have them everywhere.
Lots of cities make it such a convoluted and complex process, that it will take a million years to get to 1% of all roads having bike lanes. Especially as long as the standard development is all arterial roads and cul-de-sacs.
That, wogster, is some straight-up tight logic.