New York City has come a long way in adopting a more bike-friendly approach to city streets, but a few bad drivers always seem to show up to spoil the fun. A surprising video surfaced on Reddit showing how improvements like "protected" bike lanes can easily be invaded by reckless motorists.
The video shows a dual-lane bike path flanked by parked cars and traffic. In a shocking twist, one motorist pulls off of the road and into the bike path, seemingly to avoid traffic. The driver proceeds down the path, getting dangerously close to a few cyclists.
Payback is swift for the driver, however, as the lane is also blocked by motorists turning to cross that path and failing to leave the area clear. The cyclists easily keep up their pace and pass the dangerously intrusive driver.
One commenter noted how the cyclists were undeterred, observing, "And the bikes are still going faster."
"People complain about bikes on the road, bikes on the sidewalk, then someone builds a bike lane and they can't use that either," said another.
In 2019, the NYC Streets Plan was launched to transform the city's layout with a focus on sustainable transportation and "traffic calming" areas. As part of the plan, the city must install at least 50 miles of protected bike lanes each year between 2023 and 2026, according to the group Transportation Alternatives. According to the group, as of May 14, only 1.3 miles out of the 50 required in 2024 had been installed.
Bloomberg shared a study by the University of Oxford showing that choosing a bike over a car just once a day can reduce a person's transportation-related pollution by 67%. The study's first author, published in The Conversation, also stated that per trip cycling can have about a 30th of the carbon footprint of a dirty energy-fueled car.
In 2022, New York City Council member Lincoln Restler pushed a bill to let citizens report bike lane scofflaws and earn some money. However, the bounty and other key measures were stripped from the bill last year during the legislative process.
Popular YouTuber Casey Neistat (@CaseyNeistat) has hilariously highlighted major issues with bike lane blockages before.
As of February, there were plans to resubmit the bill in hopes of restoring the citizen reporting system and its benefits. "We believe this is the right approach to most successfully disincentivizing New Yorkers from blocking bike lanes, sidewalks, and bus lanes," Restler said, per Streetsblog NYC.
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