Bike lanes have actually sped up car traffic in New York City

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Permalink Reply by Tom A.K. on September 10, 2014 at 11:03am

Bikes and cars can coexist more safely with this NYC traffic design. It is obvious that the intersection improvement of adding the "pocket lane" for left-hand turns is helpful for getting cars out of the way of moving traffic and speeding up vehicular traffic. An efficiently designed traffic plan is essential in moving all types of traffic. Bikes included !

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Permalink Reply by Haddon on September 10, 2014 at 3:34pm

I read the same report and am a cyclist and I don't quite get how reducing the # of overall traffic lanes (sometimes by 20%) can end up increasing traffic volume. 

It's basic, if your throughput potential decreases by a quarter how does overall speed increase? Yes, average velocity has to go up (it's one of the few options) but there has to be some other factor at play?  Did they change the lighting patterns while they were at it? I don't think the # of cars went down drastically - people don't make the decision between car and bike but more often public trans. vs bike.  Are the city cops just hammering people who park in the street? I think there is some other factor coming in to effect that we don't see or are not accounting for.  I hope some more research comes out of this because this one has me flummoxed.

H

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Permalink Reply by S on September 10, 2014 at 3:56pm

It looks like the biggest benefit was adding a short dedicated stretch at intersections for cars making turns.  It smoothes out the traffic flow.  Adding bike lanes is a bit of a red herring since the only thing adding bike lanes really did was to allow NYC to redesign the lanes with the dedicated bits for turning cars.

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