Parking protected bike lanes use parked cars to create a buffer between moving vehicles and cyclists. While this eliminates a few parking spots, it improves traffic flow for vehicles increases retail sales for nearby businesses, and improves bicycle safety and encorages more people to bike. After a pilot project on 9th Avenue in 2007, then New York City transportation official Janette Sadik-Khan used 1% of her agency’s budget to build 1200 miles of protected bike lanes.
“Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.”
The root problem is definition: when is a bike not a bike? When does a “power-assisted bike” become a moped, motorscooter, or motorcycle? And when do electric 2-wheeler riders need operator licenses? As with e-commerce, ridehail, Airbnb, and consumer drones, lawmakers are fighting a rearguard action after technology got well ahead of regulation, and it’s hitting New Yorkers where they eat. Ironically, NYC says it will let UPS make deliveries by ebike.
More:
“Electric Bikes Are Blurring The Line Between Bicycles And Motorcycles,” Matt Brown, Jalopnik
“Bikeshare users sometimes park their dockless bikes on sidewalks and curb cuts, making them obstacles for people who use motorized chairs or otherwise experience disabilities affecting mobility, among others. Plus, it’s just rude.”
— “What People Mean When They Call Dockless Bikeshare a ‘Nuisance,'” Kriston Capps, CityLab
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