Pulaski Bridge
There’s talk in T.A. Land about the Pulaski Bridge.
I propose the following:
A strong argument can and should be made to change one lane of
southbound car traffic into a bike lane. It could be done with the
simple installation of Jersey barriers.
All the roads heading in the bridge are two lanes… and the bridge itself ends as two lanes. There is simply no need (except perhaps to let cars hit 100 MPH) for the bridge to have three lanes when it serves a road with two. It is all visible on google earth.
I’m no traffic engineer, but I’m pretty certain it is more dangerous to encourage speeding and then merging than to simply have two constantly moving lanes of traffic the whole way.
Regarding the “walk you bike” sign… Can anybody dig up the exact policy? Sometimes these “policies” take on a life of their own. It is possible that the “policy,” if it exists, can be met by simply placing a sign at the joints of the bridges saying “walk your bike over joint” rather than implying that the whole bridge is no biking.
But if effort is spent, I think more serious effort should be spent trying to claim a non-needed car lane as a bike lane. As it is, the current sidewalk is too narrow while being heavily used by both bikes and pedestrians.
3 Responses
Oh yeah, Jersey barriers and draw bridges probably don’t go well together! Ha! I’d love to be there the first time it goes up!
I guess the short term solution would be the rubber lane dividers with the little reflecty-don’t-run-over-me things sticking up. Shorter term is a line of paint. Longer term and more permanent (and probably never going to happen) would be to move the divider that is currently between sidewalk and street 10 feet toward the center.
Horrible idea to bike in the car lane with a barrier. People should bike slowly or walk the short distance and get on again on the descent towards greenpoint at a moderate speed. The entrance from either side, especially LIC is just plain bad and dangerous for walkwaybike or cars.
I dont think its wise for the bike community to ask for too much,too soon in a city that needs goods delivered by trucks. Lets not be associated with bloomberg the corrupt developer with no regard to neighborhoods history. Look at the steril condos next to the standard oil, toxic dump newtown creek.
I have biked for the last 13 years consistently so Im on the side of biking.
But it doesn’t have to be dangerous. That’s the point.