Regardless of age or ability, everyone deserves the right to a safe and convenient bike commute. In New York City, every day the DOT is making that more of a reality - thanks to an incredible diversity of bike facilities. The city has moved past simple, striped bike lanes and on to refreshing configurations like curbside, floating parking-protected, physically separated, two-way bike paths.
Bike riding is on the rise. Commutes that were unthinkable years ago, are becoming attainable. Riders are more confident in their knowledge of the street grid. One resource that helps is the NYC Cycling Map. Use this cycling freebie to not only link up to the best routes in your neighborhood, but also to find alternatives and experiment with your riding. You'll be amazed how easy - and safe - it can be.
So for inspiration and major cajoling, I decided to hop on my Batavus Dutch crusier and show you my new commute from Jackson Heights, Queens all the way to the Streetfilms offices in lower Manhattan via the Manhattan Bridge. It's a hardy 11 miles each way, and yet almost 90% of the journey is on some sort of bike facility or marked bike route. Furthermore, about 5 miles of it is on completely separate car-free bicycling paths, its no wonder that many days I arrive at work in a zen-like state.
Streetfilms would like to thank Bicycle Habitat for sponsoring this film.
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Clarence Eckerson Jr.:</i>
[00:16] Statistically, visually or anecdotally, whatever way you want
to measure it, bicycling is way up in New York City in the last few
years, and I’d like to do whatever I can to keep that trend going
and I thought, what a better way to do that than to convince you to
bike to work. Now I recently moved to Jackson Heights, Queens,
and if you look at where that is in relation to Lower Manhattan where
the Streetfilms headquarters is, it might seem a little daunting to
get there by bike. But I’m here to say that if you use a little
moxy and the New York City DOT Cycling Map, it’s really not that hard
at all. I figure out a few different ways to get to work from
here, but my safest and most enjoyable option takes me through Brooklyn
using the Manhattan Bridge. At eleven miles each way, it’s a
few miles longer than my other options, but I enjoy coming into Manhattan
with only about a half mile up you’ve got to go to work. Plus
by going this way I get to enjoy some of New York City’s most diverse
bicycle facilities. Let’s go. I start my commute by riding
one mile on the 34<sup>th</sup> Avenue bike lane in Jackson Heights,
Queens. It’s one of the city’s oldest bike lanes. One
of the nicest features about it is it has a green medium with trees
and plants, and it helps calm traffic. For the next two miles
I ride a complementary series of sharrows and bike lanes which weave
you safely through the Sunnyside neighbourhood. Sharrows are a
Class 3 bike facility and feature big bike stencils on the ground that
show the rider where to safely ride out of the door zone, and also tells
drivers they should be looking out for cyclists here and to share the
road. Eventually the bike lane on Skillman does end, leaving me
with about a mile of riding on streets with no bike lanes, but nothing
dangerous here at all. Next up we reach the Pulaski Bridge.
It’s an integral link in the cycling network and connects the communities
of Green Point, Brooklyn and Long Island City, Queens. Sometimes
during rush hours it can get quite crowded with pedestrians and bicyclists,
and what I would like to see someday is to see one of the lanes on the
roadway taken back and given exclusively to cyclists. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Clarence Eckerson Jr.:</i>
[02:13] So here we are at the Kent Avenue bike lane, and this has got
to be one of my favourite bike lanes in all of the city. It’s
a Class 1, two-way, floating parking protected, separate bike path which
runs for a few miles along the Williamsburg Waterfront. I love
this path. It’s swift and safe. It’s remarkable.
Beautiful. And it’s always packed with cyclists most of the
day. A popular route and works well with this type of facility. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Clarence Eckerson Jr.:</i>
[02:44] The Kent Avenue bike lane eventually deposits you on Flushing
along the Brooklyn navy yard. This time the physical separation
is done with concrete barriers instead of the floating parking.
When the two-way bike lane ends, on the westbound side it becomes a
kerbside lane, which I particularly like and have been impressed that
few people have been parking in it. Approaching the Manhattan
Bridge, you’ll get to use another incredible bike facility on Sands
Street. Check out how innovative this physically separated centre
median, two-way bike path works. One part is safely physically
separated right down the middle of traffic while another long block
has a raised bike path in the median. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Clarence Eckerson Jr.:</i>
[03:23] At this point it’s over the Manhattan Bridge, and if you know
anybody who rides a bike over it, they’ll tell you how packed it is
with cyclists just about any time of the day, but particularly during
rush hour, much like what you would see in San Francisco on Market Street
or on the Hawthorn Bridge in Portland. It’s just totally cool
to ride with this many cyclists. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Clarence Eckerson Jr.:</i>
[03:44] So once I get off the Manhattan Bridge it’s only about a half
mile of riding on Manhattan streets to get here to work. And I’m
here and I’m happy. Now to recap – that was almost an eleven
mile trip all the way from Jackson Heights to Downtown Manhattan.
The breakdown goes as follows – we had 1.6 miles of roads with sharrows,
we had three miles of roads with bike lanes, almost five miles of parking
protected, physically separated bike facilities, and only 1.6 miles
which had no bike lanes at all. So we hope by showing you my commute
I may have encouraged you to try to do the same. I mean use that
New York City bike map experiment, try to link up some of the safest
routes and get yourself to work. Hope to see you out on the roads.</font> <br>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<a href="http://transcriptdivas.ca/transcription-canada/">Transcript Divas Transcription Canada </a>
Clarence Eckerson Jr. has been making fantastical transportation media in NYC since the late 1990s. He's never had a driver's license and never will.
