Does Your City Need Wider Bike Lanes? Here’s What We Did To Make It Happen!
In New York City during the years following the initial Covid pandemic, it was apparent there were huge increases of bike & micromobiity users on some of our longest avenues with protected bike lanes.
Being a 30+ year bike rider I never witnessed a bike boom of this scale. It was 2021 and at rush hours the lanes were packed. It was fun to be riding with so many people! Of course we also had “cranks” claiming bike lanes were barely used but that didn’t sync with reality.
So I wanted to enlighten riders and the city so I did this first count on 2nd Ave placing my camera down 3 times and the results were promising: 171 bikes, 323 vehicles, 11 buses which led to a ½ dozen elected officials calling for widening it in this Streetsblog post . I did a half dozen others including this one that showed a nearly 1 : 1 ratio of bikes to cars at the base of the Queensboro Bridge Bike Path, admittedly that being a bike entry to point to Manhattan it did help skew the numbers a bit, but impressive.
Of course it being 2021, NYC was just starting to try to get back to some normalcy and solving crowded bike lanes wasn’t urgent. But it was good to put the bug in everyone’s ear. When 2023 rolled around it again brought record numbers of bikes and I felt it was time to show visually just how crowded it looked like so I posted another count (see above video) in 30 minutes. More impressive numbers: 321 bikes, 530 cars - which added more fuel to accompany NYC DOT’s announcement it would at least explore widenings.
Anytime I had an opportunity in an interview or social media to call for wider lanes, I would implore the city to simply “build for the future, not for the present”. Much joy came later in 2023 when NYC DOT announced the installation of a 30+ block section of their newest protected bike lane on 3rd Avenue and they said it would be “double wide” in most spots! You can take a look at how gloriously that turned out above (note: now the lane runs over 100 blocks along most of 3rd!)
The bike lane widenings on 2nd Avenue came late in 2024. (I had a hunch a few months earlier when an unnamned person working at NYC DOT told me they did counts as high as 900+ users from 5 to 6pm Upper East Side on 2nd Avenue.) The above is what it looked like in midtown with improvements in the 50s and below in the teens of the lower east side.
So I think this is the point where I should offer my specific recommendations.
Most important if you think a bike lane needs widening, you’re gonna need to document the numbers.
Choose a time period it’s busy (almost always am or pm rush hours).
Try to do a continuous 30 min or 1 hour time period.
Obviously don’t do a bad weather day and avoid cold or wet weather.
Try to set up so you can record not only bikes but other traffic. I’ve never done it but finding a spot high above the traffic would be a pretty awesome visual.
If you count the numbers manually do it twice just to make sure you get near the same number.
It’s also important to have a strategy to get the video out there.
Get it out on social media. Try to find local writers, bloggers or even tv that might consider a story on it.
Find local leaders/elected officials that will support you or offer soundbites.
The smart thing is to speed up for your post cause no one wants to watch a 30 minute tape. (But keep the original tape parked somewhere. I had two different cranks say I made up the numbers. I sent them a link to my original and…well…they either didn’t feel like counting or did and realized I was right and retreated.)
Partner with an advocacy organization in your city to help push the evidence.
Even if your evidence is overwhelmingly good and many parties are on board, just remember it may take a long time to get wider lanes. It’ll cost money and that may need to be budgeted in future years. If the bike lane has lots of existing curbs or barriers it may take time to figure out how to fit a wider lane. The most important thing is to use that evidence for any other bike lane designs under consideration and push to - I’ll say it again - “build for the future, not for now” and continue to revisit the places you counted so that the idea continues to be pushed and not forgotten. Good luck!
