No room for peds on NYC’s 8th Ave so they walk in Protected Bike Lane

Can you really blame pedestrians on 8th Avenue?

For a few hours at rush hour in the am/pm the protected bike lane is filled with walkers since they are forced off the dense sidewalks due to the astronomical number of commuters and residents on them.

This of course turns the protected bike lane installed a few years ago into a virtual nightmare of dodging people. But look carefully, in the 30 minutes we were there pedestrians try to be as accommodating as possible walking in the null zone between bikes and parked cars. Cyclists, too, try to make their way slowly (most of them).

It has to be frustrating for all of them. But the true enemy is, as Mark Gorton points out in the video, we have given far too much of the street to vehicles and drivers. Both pedestrians and cyclists should be angry with NYC's administration for allowing this to happen.

At least one more driving lane (and maybe two!) should be given to widen the sidewalks.

particularpigeon

This entire video seemed to cut off the view of the sidewalk. Why wouldn't you include both the crowded sidewalk as well as the pedestrian filled bike lane?
wklis

Before the 1920's, and definitely before WWI, the streets were for people. Kids could play on the streets, people could walk on the streets, and bicyclists could ride on the streets.

After the 1920's, the streets were expropriated by the motor vehicles for their own exclusive use. They even made up laws and rules that benefits or helped the motor vehicles. Keeping to the right (or left in some countries), jaywalking, traffic lights, traffic lanes, parking restrictions, etc., were all the outcome of those laws.

Time for the streets to be returned to the people.
Stephen Simac

Bicycles are vehicles. So really it's the pedestrians that are being screwed by so little space given them, when obviously they are the majority of the users of this public route.

Streetfilms