Bike Lanes: The Saga Continues

Being a Park Slope cyclist just got a little bit better. At a joint CB6-CB7 meeting last week, the DOT unveiled their plans to install bike lanes on 14th St. (running east) and 15th St. (running west) between Bartel-Pritchard Square at Prospect Park West and 3rd Ave. According to Patch, the plan hasn’t gotten the green light yet — CB 6 approved it, but CB 7 is still deliberating. Neighborhood cyclists, however, are on board with the proposal: “It’s a super wide street and many bikers use it. The bike lanes will bring order to the stretches,” said Brooklyn Spoke‘s Doug Gordon.

Meanwhile, new pedestrian push buttons at stoplights along the Prospect Park loop will  improve inner-park safety for both cyclists and their fellows on foot. Instead of operating on a regular schedule, the loop’s stoplights will now stay green by default during the park’s car-free hours — when a pedestrian wants to cross, they’ll press the button to activate a red light. The idea is to cut down on the number of times bikes have to needlessly stop and start, thereby (hopefully) making cyclists more likely to respect the (meaningful) reds they do encounter.